


Hopscotch and Red Rover

by scifigrl47



Series: Tales of the Bots [7]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Clea absolutely positively should not babysit, F/M, It's going to be SUCH A DISCUSSION, M/M, OCs Abound, Stephen Strange should not babysit, Tony and Steve are going to have so many words about this, magic goes poorly
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-10-28
Packaged: 2019-10-29 09:22:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 44,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17805362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scifigrl47/pseuds/scifigrl47
Summary: For my Marvel Trumps Hate auctionMy first winner, girlbehindtheglasses, requested a bunch of my OCs doing what my OCs do best: making very poor choices, aided and abetted by Tony and Stephen Strange.Magic abounds.  Tony suffers.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [girlbehindtheglasses](https://archiveofourown.org/users/girlbehindtheglasses/gifts).



“I’m an ordinary man, living an ordinary life.”

There was a long moment of silence. “Right,” Darcy said at last.

Harris gave her a look. “That didn’t sound sincere.”

“I mean, I managed not to laugh,” Darcy pointed out, picking up a tray from the stack. “I think I deserve credit for not laughing.”

“She does deserve credit for that,” Drew said, his tray braced on one hip. He took a sip of his soda, his eyes wide over his pursed lips. “And I deserve credit for not snorting soda out my nose.”

“Good job,” Harris said, deadpan, and Drew nodded, taking that as his due.

“Thank you,” he said. “Seriously, though, Harris, you’re a lot of things. ‘Ordinary’ doesn’t really cover it.” Mid-sentence, he held the cup of soda out to Shawn, who took a quick sip. Drew smiled at him. “You can have more.”

Shawn made a face. “I shouldn’t. Less sugar. New Year’s Resolution.” He held up his hands in front of him like a prize fighter ready to square off. “I can do this.”

“Yes.” Drew gave a slow nod. “Yes, you can.”

Shawn deflated. “You don’t think I can.”

“I am an emotionally supportive boyfriend who loves you and so I encourage you in any and all things you choose to do to come to terms with the hectic and unhealthy world we live in,” Drew said, his voice breezy. “But darling. I do know about the five pound bag of Rollos you’ve got shoved in the back of your sock drawer.”

“I threw those out,” Shawn said, as Darcy handed him a tray.

“No, you didn’t,” Drew said.

“No, I didn’t,” Shawn admitted. 

“I would’ve disowned you if you had,” Darcy said. “Waste of chocolate. We would not have been able to be friends anymore.” They followed the flow of people into the cafeteria. She peered into the fridge case. “Oooh, there’s fruit cup today!.”

“Are we being healthy?” Harris asked her, only mildly curious. He considered the cups of carrot sticks and yogurt parfaits.

“We’re being healthy when it involves melon,” Darcy said. She straightened up, her head tipping towards the prep area behind the serving counter. “Benito! My man! I need a tiny favor, teeny-tiny, not even worth-”

Benito was already shaking his head. “We are dead center of the lunch rush,” he said, his knife a blur as he chopped. “Let’s cut to the chase.”

Darcy set the container of fruit cup delicately on the cafeteria counter. “I’m gonna need you to de-grape this,” she said. Benito looked up, his expression disbelieving, and Darcy grinned at him. “Grapes are nasty.” She nudged it with one fingertip. “Nasty.”

Benito looked at Harris. “What?” Harris asked. Benito gestured at Darcy with his knife. Harris shrugged. “Don’t look at me, man, I’m not de-graping her fruit salad either.”

“You’re going to end up eating her grapes,” Shawn said. Harris made a face, and Shawn patted him gently on the back. “They look okay. I’m going to hit the salad bar.”

“There’s artichoke hearts today,” Benito told him, wiping his hands on a towel.

“Thaaaaaank you,” Shawn said. He looked at Drew. “Want a salad?”

Drew took a long drink from his soda, his eyes narrowed in consideration. “No,” he said at last.

Shawn wrapped his arm around Drew’s shoulders. “Let me rephrase,” he said, bright and chipper. “Let’s get salads!”

Drew groaned. Shawn just grinned at him, waiting patiently for him to come to terms with the inevitable. Finally, Drew nodded. “Fine. But I want blue cheese dressing.”

Shawn marched him towards the salad bar. “We can negotiate!”

Harris watched them go, trying not to grin. Darcy, for her part, just leaned her chin on the top of the cafeteria case, looking sadly at the fruit cup. “Give it up,” Harris told her, poking through the ‘grab and go’ containers of sandwiches. 

“That’s quitter talk,” Darcy said. “Literally.”

Benito’s shoulders were shaking, despite maintaining a straight face. He leaned over, digging through the refrigerator behind the sandwich station. “Here.” He came back up, holding a cup of fruit salad in one big hand. There was a piece of masking tape on the top, Darcy’s name hand printed across it. “I put some aside before we added the grapes.”

Darcy took it from him with a gleeful chortle. “Benito, you are a prince among men, you are a man of kindness and virtue, and your holiday bonus shall be obscene this year.”

“You gave me a bottle of rum last year,” Benito said.

Darcy pointed at him. “And this year? TWO bottles of rum.”

“I hope you’re looking forward to that.” Harris loaded his tray up with a sandwich and a cup of cut vegetables. 

“Kind of am,” Benito admitted. He pointed at Darcy. “Get out of my kitchen.”

“You loooooooove me,” Darcy said, as agents in combat gear and crisp black suits moved around her. She didn’t seem to notice. Harris put a gentle hand in the middle of her back, nudging her towards the line at the register. “Wait, hey, I didn’t-”

Harris dropped a chicken salad sandwich on her tray. “Yeah, you did.” As they passed the burger station, he grabbed two cups of fries. She grinned at him. “What?” Harris asked. “My new year’s revolution had nothing to do with food.”

“Neither did mine,” she agreed, popping a fry in her mouth. “Mmmmm. Unhealthy.”

“We’re both getting a large so that when Drew steals half of them, we’ll still get some,” Harris said. He waited until her back was turned, then grabbed a brownie from the dessert case. If he was going unhealthy, he was going all the way. “And can we go back?”

“To the ‘ordinary’ thing?” Darcy asked, sidestepping a pack of agents in SHIELD branded sweatsuits. “No. No, Harris, we cannot, because-” She reached out, flicking the tip of Harris’ nose with the tip of one finger. “Many things you are, but ordinary? You are not.”

“Absolutely am,” Harris said, as firmly as he could manage. They joined the line for the register, and he did his best not to be distracted by the candy rack. 

“He’s not letting this go, is he?” Drew stepped into line behind them. Harris looked down at his tray. Drew’s container of ‘salad’ appeared to be roughly two lettuce leaves and a cherry tomato, buried under a pile of croutons, chopped walnuts, crumbled bacon and a significant amount of blue cheese dressing. Harris looked at Drew, who grinned, unrepentant. “You are a truly curious specimen, Harris, and your life is one bizzare circumstance after another. The sooner you come to terms with this, the better off you’ll be.” He stole one of Harris’ fries. “And why are we suddenly focused on this?”

Harris made a face. “Just something Coulson said.”

“Well, that was your first mistake,” Darcy said, sliding her tray up the counter to the register. “Never listen to Coulson. At best it’s boring and at worst it’s terrifying.”

“He usually has a point, though,” Shawn said. Drew gave him a look, and Shawn shrugged. “Sorry. True, though.”

“Thanks a heap,” Harris told him. 

“Well, if anyone knows about trying and failing to live an ordinary life in extraordinary times, it’d be Coulson,” Shawn pointed out as Harris reached the front of the line. “Also, attracting trouble.”

Harris glanced back at him. “I don’t attract trouble,” he said, digging his wallet out of his pocket.

Everyone went silent. Including the cashier. “What?” Harris asked her.

She shrugged. “We always know when you’re coming, because the number of roombas doubles.” She gave him a smile. “Six-fifty.”

“I don’t control the roombas,” Harris said, handing her a ten, and accepting his change. “You guys know that, right, Neena?”

“But you sure do attract them,” she said, shaking her head. “Like locusts, I swear.”

“I told him he should keep them. Pawn them. Make a mint,” Darcy said, scanning her phone to pay for her meal. 

“I think that’s stealing government property,” Shawn said.

“Which is why I think he should do it, not me,” Darcy pointed out. “And you find trouble faster than anyone I know, Harris.”

“I don’t-”

“Remember when you went to pick up the pizzas for board game night and ended up foiling an armed robbery?” Darcy pointed out.

“I walked through the front door just in time for Sal to fling a pizza into the guy’s face,” Harris protested. “All I did was pick up the gun when the robber dropped it.”

“How about that time that drunk girl fell on the subway tracks?” Drew said, as his salad was weighed. He held up his empty cup.“And two sodas.”

Harris groaned. “Oh come on, half the people on the platform pulled her back up.”

“Yeah, but you were the only idiot who went down on the tracks after her,” Drew said. “Then there was the piano-”

“I don’t want to talk about the piano,” Harris said.

“Wait, the PIANO?” Neena asked.

“I wanna talk about the piano,” Darcy said. “How many people get to say to an insurance agent, ‘my car was hit by a runaway piano?’”

“Probably just me and Buster Keaton, but, again, I didn’t have anything to do with it,” Harris said. “And I felt worse for the philharmonic than I did for my insurance agent.”

“You’re friends with Tony Stark,” Shawn said.

“Tony Stark is friends with ME,” Harris said, his voice dire. “It is entirely one sided. He tried to friend me on Facebook and I clicked the ‘reject’ button.”

“You enjoyed that, didn’t you?” Darcy asked with a grin.

“In a nearly sexual way,” Harris admitted.

“There was that boardwalk collapse at the beach,” Drew mused. 

“That just happened nearby,” Shawn said. “Sure, we helped, but we weren’t really involved. The explosion on the churro cart, though, that was-”

“I never got the chocolate sauce out of that shirt,” Darcy said. She snapped her fingers. “How about the guy having a heart attack at the movie theater?” 

“You chose the location for that date, so I think that one’s on you,” Harris told her. “And we’re holding up the line.”

“I’ll tell you later,” Darcy stage-whispered to Neena.

“Thank you,” Neena mouthed back, and turned to ringing up the next person in line.

“So things happen around me, that just means I’m an ordinary man who is-” He didn’t know how to finish that sentence. “Very unlucky.”

“There’s unlucky, and then, there’s you,” Shawn said. “Because things usually go worse for the people around you then they do for you.” He paused. “That made more sense in my head.”

“No, no,” Darcy said, balancing her tray on one hand like a carhop. “He’s like, you know, a hurricane. Chaos on the edges, draws a bunch of trash into his general vicinity, but here in the center? The people who are snug right up against him?” She fluttered her eyes in Harris’ direction. “Peace in the eye of the storm.”

Harris sighed. “So a few things have happened in the last few years, that doesn’t mean-”

“My favorite news article was the one about the guy who stole the cookie money from those Girl Scouts,” Shawn started, and everyone else came to a stop, looking directly at them.

“I hate all of you,” Harris pointed out, and headed out of the cafeteria as quickly as possible without actually breaking into a run.

“We, at least, accept that our lives are out of our control and it’s best to roll with that,” Darcy said. “You seem to think that if you struggle hard enough, you’re going to wriggle through a hole in the net, but let me tell you, buster?” She dropped her tray onto an unoccupied table with a clatter. “You’re not going to. And talking about it is only going to make it worse.”

Harris stood there, his tray balanced between this hands. “How… Does talking about it make it worse?” he asked at last.

“Tempting fate,” Drew said, setting his tray down and grabbing his cup. “I’m going to go get a refill. Shawn? Want anything from the vending machine?”

“I’ll just have a cup of water,” Shawn said, snagging an empty chair from a nearby table and dragging it over. “I can-”

“You’re having a salad without dressing, and you’re washing it down with water?” Drew asked him.

“I put some oil and vinegar on there,” Shawn said. Drew made a face. “Okay, fine, I’ll get an unsweetened iced tea from the vending machine.”

“If I was born any further South, we’d be breaking up right now,” Drew said. He looked at Harris. “You want anything?”

“Can you grab me an iced tea, too?” Harris asked, digging for his wallet.

Drew waved him off. “I got it. Just don’t do anything stupid before we get back.”

“Right, I’ll… I’ll be very careful chewing,” Harris said. 

“Just… Talk about some trashy reality show or something,” Shawn said. He gave Harris a thumbs up. “Safer. For everyone.”

“You’re all insane,” Harris said. “You. Are all nuts.”

“Right,” Darcy said, taking a delicate bite from one fry. Harris gave her a look as he unwrapped his sandwich, and she waved the rest of the fry at him. “Did you watch StarkSearch last night?”

“No.” Harris took a vicious bite of his sandwich. “And neither should you.”

“Engineering as edutainment!” Darcy said, spreading her hands in the air. “It’s great!”

“No,” Harris repeated. “I’m not discussing reality tv with you. Especially not anything involving s-t-a-r-k.”

“Are we spelling his name now?” Darcy asked. “Like we do in front of dogs and small children?”

Harris nudged a Roomba away with the side of one foot. “I swear these things are listening.”

Darcy considered that. “Probably. Still safer than-”

“What’s the worst that could happen?” Harris asked. “Seriously. If I stand up right now and say, ‘Hey, world, come and get me,’ what’s the worst thing that could happen?”

Darcy stared at him. “Well, that’s a choice you’ve made there,” she said, as every single person at all the tables around them stood as one and collected their trays.

 

“Are you kidding me right now?” Harris asked, his head falling back. “Really? Who knew SHIELD agents were this superstitious?”

Agent Sitwell piled his plates onto his tray. “Have you ever been cursed?” he asked, his tone conversational. “I have. I have been cursed. It was-” He gave Harris a stern look over the rims of his glasses. “It was not pleasant. It is not a situation I want to repeat.” He paused. “Ever.”

“Did you see-” Darcy started.

“StarkSearch?” Sitwell finished for her. “Travis was robbed.”

“What PJ did? Dick move,” Darcy agreed, and Harris stood up.

He held up his half-eaten sandwich like he was proposing a toast. “You’re all insane,” he said. “And you can stay here, being insane, and have a normal lunch. Because nothing. At all. Will happen.”

There was a strange, sharp popping noise. It was, in the split second that Harris had time to think, like the sound of an incredibly large piece of popcorn exploding into existence. It was not like a gunshot, or a firework, or a tire blowing out. It was something entirely different, and entirely unfamiliar.

He heard it, and knew, without even having time to think about it, that something had just gone very, very wrong.

But he didn’t have time to think, didn’t even have time to draw breath, before something large and solid slammed into him, lifting him off his feet, and slamming him into the table behind him. Harris made a desperate grab for the edge of the table and missed, his shoulder skimming into someone’s lunch, french fries and soda going in all directions.

He tumbled head over heels and around again, crashing over the table, and from there, to the floor.

Harris lay there, gasping for breath, one leg tangled in an upturned chair, his shoulder lying in an upturned bowl of tomato soup. His head spinning, his chest aching, he tried to push himself up. The thing that had hit him, human sized and human shaped, but red and silver and metal, was rolling now, across the floor, under a table, and it was better at this than he was, finding cover, finding its balance, and he had an instant to see the light gleaming across its surface, and then it was gone.

Harris blinked. And it was gone. 

It all happened so fast that the alarms didn’t even have time to start blaring until it was all over. For a split second, there was silence. Shocked, confused silence. And then the alarms went off, every one of them, all at once, nearly loud enough to drown out the sound of what was probably a hundred guns being drawn all at once.

“Why is everyone here ARMED?” Harris asked, because Darcy was there, her hands sliding over his face, pushing his hair back, her fingers cradling his head. “Everyone has a GUN.”

“Yes, we work for a paramilitary government organization,” Darcy said, her voice tight. “Look at me.”

Harris looked at her. “I don’t have a gun,” he pointed out. A Roomba was trying to collect the remains of his sandwich. He lifted his arm to give it better access and it beeped at him in an approving manner.

“Yes, neither do I, and that’s why we’re leaving,” Darcy said. “Does anything hurt? Did you hit your head? Does anything feel broken?”

Harris considered that. “I think I need another sandwich,” he said at last, holding up the crust of bread he’d managed to hold onto.

“Right, let’s get on that,” Darcy said, and Sitwell was there, and Sitwell had a gun, and that was strange, that was very strange. 

Harris let them pull him to his feet. “Why do you have a gun?” he asked Sitwell.

“Because it ties the outfit together,” Sitwell said. “Take him to medical, have them look him over, you’re not going to be able to leave, we’ll be on lockdown until-”

Harris wasn’t really listening any more. He looked out across the cafeteria, and it was a sea of movement and noise and chaos and he didn’t understand what had happened. What had happened. What had that thing been, where had it come from? How did it end up here? 

Where did it go?

A Roomba floated past him, wobbling through the air and stopped, halfway under a table, executing a slow, easy loop. It hovered there, swinging slowly back and forth, and then turned and moved a few feet away. Stopped. Rotated. Went back.

Harris stared, confused, as the Roomba rotated and floated right back where it had come from. Another bump, another rotation, and he realized, something, or someone was pushing it. Nudging it. The way he did. And the Roomba just kept going right back.

As if it could see something no one else could.

Harris’s mouth worked. “DJ?”

He didn’t know he was going to say it until he did. He didn’t know why he said it, until he had. Red metal. The Roomba. The chaos.

Harris tugged his arm out of Darcy’s grip, his voice rising. “DJ?”

And the thing popped into existence. Right in front of him, so close that he could touch it, so close that he could see his reflection in the smooth, dark surface of the metal. Harris bit back something like a scream, his heart in his throat, one hand flailing out. 

There was a beat of silence, of stillness, and Harris knew, on some level, that every gun in the room was now pointed in his general direction. He took a breath, and another, and tried to ignore the pale, frightened face that he saw reflected in the smooth, featureless front of the helmet.

The metal melted away, peeling back in a silent rush, revealing a face that was almost, just almost, familiar.

“Oh.” DJ blinked at him, slow and careful, and he was older, he was not the small child Harris remembered any more, but that motion, the slow, precise way he blinked, that was familiar. “This isn’t… What I meant at all.”

*

-Previously, A few universes over-

“You’re still thinking about it?”

DJ looked up from his tablet, blinking hard to make his eyes focus. Steve was smiling down at him, and DJ tried to smile back. “Yes,” he said. He closed the invitation with a flick of his fingertip and set the tablet aside. He rocked forward in his seat, his hands braced on either side of his hips, his toes curling up tight. “It’s…” He made a face. “Confusing.”

“I know.” Steve set a plate of cookies down on the workbench before he took a seat across from DJ. “Do you want to talk about it?”

DJ shook his head, reaching for a cookie. “Just… Thinking.”

“I know.” Steve pushed some of the tools out of the way, clearing a spot for his arms. “This is-” He picked up a chunk of the armor, turning it over in his hands. He gave DJ a glance, one eyebrow arching. “Dad’s making improvements again, isn’t he?”

DJ grinned. “Always,” he said, and Steve laughed.

“Always,” he agreed. Steve reached out, his fingers gentle as he brushed DJ’s hair back from his forehead. “You know we’ll support you, no matter what you want to do, right?”

DJ reached for another cookie. Cookies were uncomplicated. “Yes,” he said, because Steve had that pinched, tight look on his face again, and he hated that face. The answer must’ve been the one that Steve had been hoping for, because his face relaxed. DJ smiled at him. “Figure it out.”

“I know you will,” Steve agreed, taking a cookie of his own. “You have class today?”

“I have class today,” DJ agreed. He looked at the clock that Jarvis kept running for him at all times. He should be getting ready. “Soon.”

“Do you need a ride?” Steve asked, popping the cookie into his mouth and reaching for another.

“Happy’s driving,” DJ said, picking up his hoodie, and shrugging into it. “He has to pick up dad.”

“So he’s dropping you off on the way?” Steve asked. DJ nodded. “Want me to pick you up? Or is Stephen sending you home?”

DJ made a face. “He can,” he said, drawing out the word.

Steve did his best not to smile. He wasn’t entirely successful, but DJ appreciated that he tried. “Don’t like teleporting?”

“It’s…” DJ stopped, trying to find a way to explain the way he felt when the world disappeared around him, the way his stomach seemed to show up ten or so seconds after the rest of him when it finally reappeared. Or the way that, no matter how much he knew it wasn’t possible, he could swear that he could see things in the moments where he was neither here nor there.

“Disconcerting,” he said at last, each syllable picked out with careful precision.

Steve nodded. “I’ll come get you.” He tapped the plate with one finger. “Want the last one?”

DJ broke it in half and offered a piece to Steve. “Call?”

“You want me to call, or you’ll call when you’re done?” Steve asked, and DJ was always grateful for the way he tried to make things understandable for them both.

“I’ll call,” DJ said. He gave Steve a hopeful smile. “Bike?”

Laughing, Steve flipped DJ’s hood over his head. “On New York streets? Your father would kill us both.”

“Live dangerously,” DJ said, his voice stern. He peeked out from under the hood.

“I haven’t told him that you’re taking lessons from Doctor Strange, that’s dangerous enough for me,” Steve said. He stood, collecting the empty plate. “You’ll be home for dinner?” 

DJ nodded. “Nat’s cooking.” 

“Right, so we’d better be on time, or we’ll both be in trouble,” Steve said. “Take your backpack, okay? In case something happens, and I’m not home to get you-”

“I’ll call Happy,” DJ said. Steve opened his mouth, and DJ smiled, “I’ll bring my bag.”

“Thank you for humoring me.” He tossed the plate in the air and caught it, the movement smooth and easy. DJ tracked the arc, waiting for the plate to land safely in Steve’s hand. When it finally did, he exhaled, his shoulders relaxing.

He glanced at the clock. “Jarvis, update?”

“Happy is roughly ten minutes away,” Jarvis said. “And your shoes are in the playroom.”

“I know,” DJ said, hopping off of his stool. He grabbed his tablet, tucking it under his arm before he crossed to the cabinet where they kept his backpacket. 

“He didn’t know,” Steve said to Jarvis.

“No, he didn’t,” Jarvis agreed.

“I DID,” DJ said, and it was mostly the truth. Well, it was close to the truth.

“Of course,” Jarvis said, his voice tart. “Then you won’t require my help in finding where they are in the playroom.”

“Nope.” DJ grabbed his bag. He would’ve taken it, even without Steve’s suggestion. The weight of it, hanging from his hand or his shoulder, was comforting. He shifted, settling it against his back, and wondered if this was how his father felt about the armor. “By the door.”

It was a guess, but apparently a good one. “Then off you go, Happy will meet you in the garage.”

“Going!” DJ said, stopping long enough to hug Steve. Laughing, Steve hugged him back, pressing a kiss to the top of DJ’s head.

“Love you, botboy,” Steve said. “Don’t be late.”

“Won’t!” Ten minutes would hopefully give him enough time to find his shoes. Because at this point, asking Jarvis for a hint was not an option.

*

“Think this is your stop.”

DJ looked out the window, squinting into the late afternoon sunlight. The Sanctum Sanctorum was a familiar sight by now, but he still wasn’t completely used to it. “Yes.” He grabbed his bag from the seat next to him, and leaned forward. “Thank you.” He tapped his knee, and Furbro, who had been peering out the back window, hopped onto his shoulder and scrambled down into DJ’s sweatshirt. He wriggled into place, his head peeking out over the top of his zipper. Grinning, DJ scratched him on the head, and the little lizard arched up into his touch.

Happy grinned at him in the rearview mirror, one hand resting easily on the steering wheel. “Sure. I’d wait here for you, but-”

“Need to get dad,” DJ finished for him. He tapped Furbro on the nose, and Furbro nipped playfully at his fingertip.

“Need to get dad,” Happy agreed. “And it’s been an all day meeting, so you know he’s going to be cranky.”

“Bring him a coffee?” DJ suggested.

“Not a bad idea,” Happy said. “It’s not much of a distraction, but even he has a problem yelling and drinking at the same time.”

“No, he doesn’t,” DJ said.

“No, he doesn’t,” Happy laughed. “But it’s funny to watch.”

“Yes, it is.” Grinning, DJ pushed the door open, slipping out of the car and dragging his bag after him and shifting it onto his shoulder. Furbro disappeared into his sweatshirt, curling up under the fabric. “Thank, Happy.”

“Anytime, kiddo.” He leaned back, studying the house. “I’ll wait until you get inside, okay?”

“Okay.” DJ shut the door, turning away from the car. His hands locked on the straps of his backpack, he took a deep breath.

The Sanctum Sanctorum loomed over the street, strangely outsized for the physical footprint of the brownstone building. To DJ, it seemed to fill every possible inch of space, pressing hard at the edges of the street, and the sky itself. Despite this, people moved past it, without giving it so much as a second look. Even those who glanced up at the house never looked long. Their eyes seemed to slide over the heavy facade and the gleaming central window, a stark, unblinking eye that stared back at them.

Even when the house was seen, no one saw it. DJ felt a kinship with it, for that very reason.

It was waiting for him; the moment he stepped towards the fence, the gate unlocked with an audible click. He pushed the iron gate open, slipping through the gap in the fence, and letting it swing shut behind him. As soon as the gate settled back into place, the fence seemed to absorb it, the metal curling into place like a vine. DJ headed up the short path, letting his toes drag through the fog that clung to the stones. No matter how warm it was, no matter what time of day, every step would kick up a thin film of mist.

The doorknob turned before he could even reach for it, the door swinging open, just an inch or two, before creaking to a stop. DJ peered through the crack of the door. “Hello?” he called. The single word echoed, rattling around the room in a way that made goosebumps break out along the length of his arms. DJ’s fingers slid across the wood of the door. It was strangely warm.

“Ah! Is it Thursday already?”

Strange plowed through the wall, leaving a trail of glittering sparks in his wake. The wall closed up behind him, shuddering back into place as soon as his cape was clear. “We’re having-” Strange ducked as the massive staircase shifted a foot to one side, the carpet hopping free of the wood for an instant. Strange gave it a stern look. “Stop that.” He flicked his fingers in that direction, and the staircase rattled back into place, the stairs rising and falling like piano keys. “You are an embarrassment.”

DJ gave the stairs a suspicious look. “Is the house-” He looked up, watching the ceiling flex. “Okay?”

“We have a small vermin problem at the moment,” Strange said, his voice brisk. 

The ceiling collapsed in a rush, the wood and stone and plaster shattering to pieces as Clea fell through. She tumbled through the air, her hands throwing off a shower of sparks, and disappeared through the floor. The ceiling swirled back into place, leaving only a faint hint of dust in the air.

“We’re handling it,” Strange said, without even looking back in that direction.

DJ gave a slow, careful nod. “Are you?”

Strange gave him a bright smile. “Oh, quite definitely, nothing to worry about.” He took DJ by the elbow, steering him towards the stairs. “Let’s just head to the library, we’ll be able to-” One of the bannisters snapped up, the wood creaking like a branch in the wind. Heaving a put upon sigh, he gave it a sharp rap with his knuckles. “Worse than termites, I swear.”

“Oh. Is it Thursday?” Clea leaned out of a doorway on the third floor. “Hello, intern.”

“Apprentice,” Strange corrected.

“No one has apprentices any longer, love. Interns are for the modern world.”

DJ looked up at her. Then down at the first floor. “Didn’t you just-” He stopped, not sure how to verbalize ‘fall through the floor.’

“Probably.” Clea stepped onto the landing, a long parade of books bouncing along in her wake. “What good timing. I made a cake, I’ll fetch you a slice.”

“You’ll ruin his dinner, darling,” Strange said, ducking as the books whirled past them.

Clea paused. Held up a hand. Snapped her fingers. “Now it won’t!” she said, sounding very pleased with herself. A book bounced off the ceiling, and she reached out to catch it. “Now-”

The staircase flexed like an accordian, and Strange caught DJ by the elbow, lifting him away into the air before the stairs could collapse under them. The wood parted, creaking as it did, and Clea poked her head up from between the boards. “Drat,” she said, and disappeared again.

Clea on the third floor glanced down a the Clea in the stairs. “What did I think that would accomplish?” she asked, and went back to flipping through her book. The pages appeared to be on fire.

“I think you’re looking for the spores,” Strange said, lowering DJ’s feet down onto the landing. 

“Well, that’s foolish of me.” A painting shifted on the wall, and without a beat of pause, Clea turned, hurling the book directly at it with the force of a major league pitcher. The book went right through the wall, taking the painting with it. Clea looked at the resulting hole, her head tipped to the side. “As was that.”

“Definitely effective in the short term,” Strange said. He gave DJ a gentle push towards the staircase. “Off you go, you know where the library is, I’ll be right behind you.” He leaned in, adding in a whisper, “Don’t eat the cake.”

DJ’s hands were locked on the straps of his backpack, his knuckles white with the force of his grip. “I can… I can just come back tomorrow,” he managed.

“Nonsense, we’ll have this sorted in just a moment.” Strange smiled at him, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “And the library has a number of protections on it. You know that. You’ll be safe there, I promise.”

DJ blinked at him. “I do not believe you,” he said.

“I’d be insulted, but you likely have a point,” Strange said. “And as an apprentice, a very valuable lesson to learn.”

“If I’ve learned something, I can go,” DJ pointed out.

“Good try. Off with you, I’ve left your books in the library, and-” Far below them, a bell started tolling, with a slow and measured tempo, and Strange stopped. He held up a hand. “Excuse me for a moment.”

DJ realized he was waiting for a reply. The bell seemed to be speeding up. “Okay,” he said.

“Thank you.” With a smile, Strange exploded in a swirl of gleaming sparks.

DJ looked at Clea, who was ripping pages out of a book. They hovered in midair, reforming themselves into what might have been a completely different book. “Will… Will he be okay?” DJ asked.

“It’s entirely possible,” Clea said with a bright smile. The pages ripped free of the spine with a sound like a scream. She tossed them cheerfully over her shoulder. “I’m rather hoping he’ll find Wong.”

DJ thought about that. And decided he didn’t want to think about it. “Me, too,” he said instead, and there was nothing here but bad choices. But the third floor landing looked remarkably intact, and the main foyer-

He looked down. It might’ve been liquid. It sure looked liquid. He was pretty sure it shouldn’t have been liquid. Or even semi-liquid.

“Library,” Clea said, her voice gentle, and DJ looked back at her. She smiled, and he felt his heartbeat slow down. “You’ll be just fine, DJ. I promise.”

He took a breath. The air tasted like almonds and vanilla. “Library,” he repeated.

“Library,” she agreed. “Off with you.” She yanked a page free, holding it up between her index finger and thumb. It twisted back and forth, rattling against itself. She released it, and it burst into flame.

DJ turned and headed straight towards the library at a pace just under a run. He made it to the door in record time, fumbling it open and then slamming it closed behind him. He leaned back against the door, his breathing ragged, braced for whatever the library had in store for him.

Which appeared to be a thick slice of chocolate cake, balanced precariously on top of a stack of his usual study books. 

DJ gave it a suspicious look. The cake did not appear to be impressed.

He pried his fingers free of the doorknob, creeping forward. Furbro popped up, his front paws tugging on one of the strings from DJ’s hoodie. Gently, DJ pushed him back down. “Stay,” he said, ignoring the way Furbro tried to bite him. 

The library was quiet and still, the rows and rows of bookshelves piled high with heavy old volumes and random piles of scrolls and tablets. Dust motes floated through the air, caught in the golden light of the lamps. The center of the library was dominated by a massive table, worn smooth by countless years of use, and stained by a variety of things that DJ did his absolute best not to think about.

Eating off of it seemed like a bad idea, somehow.

DJ took a seat at the table, wondering if there was a way to get to his practice books without touching the cake. Furbro kicked at his breastbone, and DJ lowered the zipper of his hoodie. Furbro’s head popped up, and he blinked up at DJ. “Don’t go far,” DJ told him, and Furbro chittered at him and settled down to chew on the teeth of his zipper.

He reached for a book, trying to wiggle it out of the middle of the stack. Analytical Magic, one of his favorites. It had a lot of numbers, and he got to use a graphing calculator. It wasn’t much to cling to, but at this point, he’d take what he could get.

DJ flipped the book open and turned the pages, trying to find where he’d left off. Not that it mattered all that much, there was nothing in here that he couldn’t bear to repeat a few times. Or a few dozen times. He huffed out a sigh, one finger rubbing Furbro’s head. He flipped through the pages, his eyes eyes skimming over the text, even as his fingertips struck sparks against the paper.

He was getting better at that. Small, almost controlled bursts of power. He could do little things, if he concentrated hard enough. Single words, with the full force of his voice behind them, could make small things happen. He raised his hand, and flicked his fingertips. “Turn.”

The book rotated in place.

DJ frowned at it. “No,” he told the book, trying to sound stern. He took a deep breath. “Turn.”

The pages rattled against each other, and settled back into place. DJ held up a hand. “Turn!”

The faint, almost invisible swirl of light played around his fingers, floating upwards like glowing, dissipating smoke. Frowning, DJ shook out his hand, scattering the last bits of power. “Not what-” The magic, freed from his control, continued floating upwards, swirling through through the air.

Curious, DJ watched it go, his head tipping back to follow its progress upwards. Up, above the bookshelves, through the tarnished metal of the light fixture, the light casting shadows across the ceiling.

DJ’s stomach bottomed out in an instant.

There was nothing there.

Where the ceiling should’ve been, there was simply…. Nothing. A void. A lack. As if whatever had been there had been consumed, been burned away, and there was nothing left, no dark or light, no sky, no sign of the building itself.

There was nothing there, and it was moving.

Something whipped through the air, a tendril of nothing lashing out, swallowing the last hint of DJ’s loosed power, and DJ scrambled back, his chair tipping as the back legs caught on the carpet. For an instant, he hung in midair, his hands up in front of him, trying to ward it off, trying to hold it back, and whatever he wanted to say caught in his throat.

The nothing spread, enveloping books, shelves, swallowing the light whole, the light flickering out as it disappeared. It was moving, bubbling, thick and viscous, crawling through the air, threads tangling against wood, against walls. 

He screamed, and it was a word. “Stop stop stop stopstopstopstopstop.” DJ lashed out with one hand, light pooling between his fingers, licking along his skin, uncontrolled and uneven. He stared up into the roiling, twisting nothing, knowing that whatever small power he had, whatever he could summon, that was not anything that could stop the thing that was coming, that was already here. His fingers snapped together in a fist, closing around that small, brilliant light.

DJ’s eyes closed, and he focused on the burning sensation as it crawled up his arm. “STOP.”

The silence was sudden and absolute. DJ’s eyes flicked open, and found that the world around him had frozen in place, a tendril of nothingness hanging motionless in space right in front of him. The glow from his hand was stronger now, bright enough to throw shadows across the walls, across the bookshelves. Everything else was still. Frozen.

He had to get out of here.

“Where?”

The single word whispered through his head, the letters rattling against each other. DJ sucked in a breath, not sure when he’d last remembered to breathe. 

“Where?”

Curious. Unconcerned. Almost amused. DJ glanced desperately over his shoulder, but he was alone. Just him, and the thing that was crawling across the ceiling, across the walls. The thing that was reaching for him.

“Where?”

Making deals with disembodied voices was not a good idea. DJ knew this. Things that couldn’t be seen couldn’t be trusted, and the voice was wrong. It was… 

Wrong.

“Where?”

“Safe.” He exhaled, and his breath curled in front of him, like the air had gone cold in an instant. “Somewhere safe,” he said, and his fingers were burning, right down to the bone. 

“Where?”

The tendril was moving, slowly, slowly, it was uncurling, as if whatever was holding it in place was failing. DJ stepped back, his heart in his throat. “Not HERE! As far away as I can-”

The tendril snapped straight at him, and he released the light that he’d been holding, coiled tight against his palm, and it went off like a firework. “As far away from here as I can get!” he yelled, and his hand latched onto the strap of his backpack.

Magic and tech responded almost simultaneously, the armor snapping out, reaching out to envelop him at the same moment that reality collapsed in on him. He twisted as he fell, a few inches at first, the carpet rushing up to meet him, and then, the carpet was gone. The floor was gone. The library was gone.

Everything was gone.

He held his breath as the armor slid into place, the metal smoothing around him like a liquid, settling into place even as he fell, as he fell through the nothing and into something else entirely.

DJ didn’t even have time to fire the repulsors. Before he even realized he was back in something resembling reality, he was already crashing into it. The next few seconds was chaos, as he hit, and bounced, and hit again, his arms flailing as he tried to slow himself down.

He skidded to a stop, the metal scraping across the tile floor, and lay there, gasping for breath. The HUD was going nuts in front of his face, throwing up data and warnings faster than his spinning head could take them in. The blare of the alarm inside the helmet mingled with the one outside the armor, and DJ managed to flop onto his back, halfway under a table.

Seek’s stealth capabilities had kicked in already, and he pushed himself back, hsi legs aching as he tried to maneuver himself under a nearby table. It wasn’t perfect, but at least no one would trip over him. Legs flashed by, right in his line of sight, and he frowned.

SHIELD.

DJ rolled over, ducking from one table to the next, trying to put some distance between him and his crash site. “Jarvis?”

The word echoed inside the helmet, and a cursor flashed on the HUD. No contact. DJ took a deep breath, and another. “No Jarvis.” The words were jittery, uneven. He nodded. “Scan. Find anything familiar, anything-” The table he was under jolted as someone bumped it, and DJ jerked sideways, drawing his legs up and out of the way. “Get me a network.”

He watched as people passed, and it sure looked like SHIELD. But if it was SHIELD, he should be able to reach Jarvis. There’s no way he’d lose the connection, not just across the length of New York City. He craned his head, trying to see if there was a window nearby. Maybe a SHIELD facility somewhere else in the world. Not the helicarrier, he didn’t think, he’d be able to feel the vibrations if it was-

Something bumped against the side of his head.

DJ bit back a scream, his hands coming up reflexively, ready to ward off the threat. What he found instead was a Roomba, swinging back and forth in midair. It beeped at him, rotating in place, and floated forward again, bouncing against the armor’s faceplate.

“Hi,” DJ said, placing a gentle hand on its casing and pushing it away. It wobbled away, tiny repulsor flickering, and then turned, bouncing back straight for DJ. DJ nudged it away again. “Why are you-”

The HUD beeped. DJ blinked as the network information scrolled in front of him, shoving the Roomba away again as it snuggled up against him. “Wait. Wait, are you-”

“DJ?”

The voice cut through the chaos, and DJ’s head snapped up, grazing the bottom of the table.

“DJ?”

He knew that voice. DJ scrambled to his feet, almost knocking the table aside in his haste, and Harris was right there, a few feet away, and Darcy was right next to him, holding onto his arm, and they looked just like he remembered them, just like he’d known them.

Safe. As far away as he possibly could get. But safe.

The armor’s stealth dropped away, and DJ retracted the helmet. Harris stared at him, his blue eyes wide and his face pale. Next to him, Darcy clapped a hand over her mouth, her eyes huge. “Oh.” DJ blinked at them, not sure exactly what to say. “This isn’t… What I meant at all.”


	2. Chapter 2

“We have a problem.”

“Dummy, I’m going to need you to change the sign,” Tony said, not looking up from his work. “It’s now been zero days since Agent Coulson told us that we have a problem.” He squinted down at the incredibly delicate electrical circuit he was working on. “We didn’t quite make the record of eleven days set when Clint dragged him on vacation last year.”

Dummy rolled past, a dry erase marker clamped firmly in his claw, and Tony watched him go, a faint smile on his face. “Make that zero big and bold, buddy. We want to be able to see it from space.”

He didn’t hear Phil’s sigh, but he knew it had happened. “Done?” Phil asked.

“For the time being,” Tony said, spinning on his stool. He tossed his soldering iron to the side, wincing as his fingers protested the movement. “God, how long have I been at this?”

“For most of your life, if reports can be believed,” Phil said. 

“Some days it feels like it.” Tony braced his hands on the small of his back, trying to work the kinks out of his shoulders. “What’s the problem? There’s no alarms and no one’s running around grabbing weapons, so what’re we looking at here? Past due on the grocery bill? Thor get into a diplomatic incident over street food again? You need me to get you reservations at Per Se because they’re not returning your phone calls?”

Phil gave him a look. “Are we hungry?”

“I might’ve missed lunch now that you bring it up,” Tony said. 

“I’ll have something waiting for you, come on.”

*

“Explain this again.” 

Harris took a deep breath. “He’s Tony Stark’s kid,” he said.

Drew nodded, a slow, deliberate movement of his head. “He’s… Tony Stark’s kid,” he repeated, his voice disbelieving.

DJ raised his hand in a little wave. “Hi,” he said.

Drew nodded again. “Hi!” He looked at Darcy. “Tony Stark has a kid?”

“He’s Tony’s kid, but not our Tony,” Darcy explained. “A Tony Stark.”

“Not our Tony,” Harris reiterated. His mouth went tight. “Oh, God, we have a Tony. There’s one. I mean.” He rubbed his forehead. “There’s more than one, I have personally spoken to two of them, there’s at least two, oh dear God-”

“Breathe, darling,” Darcy said, popping a gummy bear into her mouth.

Harris sucked in a breath, which helped the light-headedness a lot. “Right. But there is a Tony Stark. That we have to claim. As ours.”

“Yours, mostly,” Darcy said. “I pointed out he could legally adopt me without having to marry my mother, but I didn’t manage to get any traction on that idea.” She looked at DJ. “So, what am I missing? What’s it like, being a Stark?”

“It’s less-” DJ paused, his eyes narrowed. “Less than you might think.”

“Less what?” she asked, holding out a bag of Goldfish crackers.

DJ considered the label. “Ooo. Cheddar.” He took a few, laying them out in the flat of his palm so they formed a wavy line. “Just less.” He tossed one in the air and caught it in his mouth, then reached for his juice. “And at the same time… More?”

“Gotcha,” Darcy said, and Harris got the idea that she did, in fact understand. Even stranger, he kind of understood as well.

Drew stared at DJ. DJ stared back, his lips pursed around the straw of his juice box. Drew’s eyes narrowed. “You’re a Stark,” he said to DJ.

DJ took a long sip of his juice. “Stark-Rogers,” he said at last. “Technically. But biologically?” He shrugged. “Stark.”

Drew swiveled around. “I can’t handle this,” he said to Harris. “I can’t-” He swung back around. “You look just like him.”

DJ considered that, the toe of one sneaker flicking against the leg of his chair. “People say that,” he said, sounding almost apologetic. “A lot.”

“Probably more than you know,” Darcy said, just as there was a rap on the conference room door. 

Sitwell leaned in, a tray of wrapped sandwiches and cups of soup balanced on one hip. “Got you some real food,” he said, setting it on the table. “If you want it. Lewis, we need you downstairs, Dr. Foster is having a bit of a nervous reaction to the possibility of the ‘imminent collapse of the multiverse,’ and handling that is squarely in your job description.”

Darcy kicked out with her legs and rolled to her feet. “Did you get me my-” Sitwell tossed a snack sized bag of Pretzel M&Ms at her, and she snagged them out of mid-air. “Excellent.” She leaned over, brushing a kiss against Harris’ cheek. “Off to soothe the savage science department,” she said, her voice cheerful. 

“Try to keep them calm,” Harris said. He pointed at Drew, who was peeking under the lids of the soup cups. “Take him with you.”

“I’d say he’s your problem, but honestly, he’s very calming,” Darcy said, her hands on her hips. “Let’s go, Drew.”

Drew groaned, but stood up. “What am I supposed to do? Discuss the Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen paradox with them?”

“God, no, we’re talking them off the ledge, not riling them up,” Darcy said, taking a cup of soup out of his hand and putting it back on the tray. “I tend to either bring up the Kardashians or give them an opening to tell me just how horrible The Big Bang Theory is. Then, alcohol.”

“Oh, pop culture mockery and pre-apocalyptic partying, that’s good, I can work with that,” Drew said, folding his hands together and cracking his fingers. “Let’s do this thing.”

“Blockbuster movies work too,” DJ offered. “Steve brings up The Matrix when he wants to distract Dad.”

Darcy blinked at him. “The Matrix?”

DJ made a face. “He has… Opinions,” he said, his voice somehow ominous.

“Don’t they all,” she said. She held up a hand. “High five?”

DJ reached out, tapping his hand against hers, his face relaxing into a smile. “Sorry.”

“What, about the panicking PhDs?” she asked, waving him off. “Not your fault, buster. They work for SHIELD; they know entirely too much about too many things, and unlike the rest of us, they actually try to make all those things make SENSE. That’s the mistake right there.” She looked at Sitwell. “If you bring up Game of Thrones one more time…”

He sighed. “Books only, I GET it.” He waited until they were gone, then he looked over at Harris and DJ, his eyebrows arching over the top of his glasses. “Need anything else?”

“I’m okay,” Harris said, folding his arms on the table. He looked at DJ, who was staring out the windows at the city skyline, his face unreadable. “I’ll call if anything comes up?”

Sitwell gave DJ a measuring look. “You’ve got my number. Phil’s getting-”

“Phil got. I thought we expelled you.” Tony ducked around him and strode into the room, his hands tucked in his pockets, his head tipped to the side. He was smiling, but there was a tension around his mouth, around his eyes. “Didn’t we? I distinctly remember-” He pointed a finger at Harris as he passed. Behind him, Sitwell closed the conference room door. “This is your fault. Don’t think that it isn’t. Absolutely your fault, you were given the defective product and a valid receipt and you were sent to make a return.”

He paused, and spread his hands at his sides. “You had one job, MacIntyre.”

“You sent me into an active wormhole,” Harris pointed out. “You… Tossed me into an untested piece of possibly alien technology. What did you expect?”

“And I expected you to hold it together and get the job done, that’s what I expected,” Tony said. He looked down at DJ, his face relaxing into a smile. “What is this doing back here?” He rocked forward on his feet, his shoulders canting forward. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

DJ smiled back up at him. “Hello, not-dad.”

Tony choked on a laugh. “Hello, not-my-favorite-bot.”

Confused, Harris looked at DJ, who spun his chair in a circle with a flick of one foot. “Ah!” he said, the single syllable somehow triumphant. His head rolled on his neck, tracking Tony as the chair continued to turn. “You figured it out.”

“You wanted me to,” Tony said. He hooked a chair with one foot, dragging it away from the table and dropping into it, all loose limbs and easy grace. He propped an elbow on the arm of the chair and rested his chin on fisted hand. “Didn’t you?”

DJ turned the juice box around in his hands, his fingers tracing along the edges, measuring the length and height and depth of it. “Seemed fair,” he said, at last. He glanced up, his lips twitching in a slight smile. “You needed to know.”

“Yeah, no, I… I didn’t,” Tony said. His head fell back as he stared up at the ceiling. “Because now I have nothing but questions, and I’m doing my best not to ask any of them because I suspect that giving voice to certain chaotic concepts will lead to a complete breakdown of how I understand the universe. And I think we all know that I have many excellent qualities, but tact is not on that list.”

“You can ask,” DJ said, setting the juice box down on the table. He went to pull back then stopped, one finger coming out to nudge the juice box into perfect alignment with the edge of the table. Satisfied, he sat back. “If you want.” He paused, his head tipped to the side. “Reality is more… Flexible than you might think.”

“Thank you, that’s terrifying to hear,” Tony said. He looked at Harris. “I blame you for this.”

“So you’ve said. Several times since you walked in,” Harris said. He offered the Goldfish to Tony, who considered them with narrowed eyes. Harris jiggled the bag. “Jesus, you rich twit, just eat the damn crackers.”

Tony took a fistful. “As a distraction, this is subpar, MacIntyre.”

“Put food in your mouth and shut up for a minute,” Harris told him. He looked at DJ, who was chewing on his straw. “You hungry?” He reached for the tray that Sitwell had left for them. “The sandwiches are actually really good here.”

DJ shook his head. “Okay,” he said, and stopped, his eyes closing. He took a deep breath, the air hissing between his teeth. “I’m okay.”

Harris looked at Tony, who met his eyes and shrugged. Harris sighed, not sure why he expected anything different. Why would either of them have any idea what to do or say? He smiled at DJ, who smiled back, faint and strained, but still a smile. “It’s… Okay not to be okay,” Harris offered.

“You’re doing better than I would,” Tony said. He tossed a Goldfish in the air and caught it in his mouth, the exact way that DJ had, before he’d arrived. Harris wondered if DJ recognized it, too. “I’d be in a flat panic.”

“Panic isn’t flat,” DJ said. “At all. But I’m-” His nose wrinkled as he thought about that. “I’m okay. If I’m not, I think you’ll know.” He drew up one leg, bracing the heel on the edge of his chair. He looked up. “Yes?”

“Yes,” Harris agreed.

“Will there be screaming? Because, just to be clear, I’m okay with screaming,” Tony said. 

“You should be, you do enough of it,” Harris said, and Tony’s head snapped in his direction, his mouth hanging open. Harris held his hands up. “Yeah, I said it.”

“I’m shocked, appalled and proud in equal amounts,” Tony said. “Pride’s growing, though.” He looked at DJ. “So. What’s new?”

DJ considered that, his eyes narrowed. “A lot of things,” he said at last, and Tony covered his mouth to hide his smile. 

“Right. Right. Same here. Anything you’d like to talk about?” he asked, reaching for the Goldfish again. Harris handed them over. “Because all the questions that are springing to mind aroe about your father and I think I’m trying to use it as a diviniation method of how to deal with my own-”

“Your parents married yet?” Harris asked and the look Tony gave him was equal parts betrayed and traumatized.

“Don’t answer that-” he started, but DJ was already shaking his head.

“No, because Steve refuses to get married without a pre-nup and Dad refuses to get married with a pre-nup and they’ve been in a standoff over it for like, three years now,” he said. He stopped. “Clint got ordained. As a justice of the peace. He says they’re going to end up needing to do it somewhere for some stupid reason and now he’s ready.” He stopped. “Like that scene in Pirates of the Carribean.”

There was a long moment of silence. “Wow,” Harris said, because he couldn’t seem to come up with anything better to say.

DJ nodded. “There are schemes. And betting pools. I’m not supposed to know about either of those, but everyone talks so loud all the time.”

Tony cradled his head in his hands. “I’m not getting married by Clint of all people.”

“No, but his Tony probably is,” Harris said. Tony raised his head just far enough to glare in his direction, and Harris shrugged. “Seems likely, that’s all I’m saying.”

“You need to stop talking,” Tony said.

“This is honestly the most fun I’ve had in weeks,” Harris said. He reached for a cup of soup and popped the lid off. Cheddar broccoli. Pleased, he reached for a spoon. “You have friends? School?” he asked DJ.

“Friends, yes. School’s harder,” DJ said. He picked up a cup of soup, but made no move to open it, just rolling the cup between his hands, as if he was warming his palms. “I have a girlfriend.”

“Yeah?” Harris paused, spoon halfway to his mouth. DJ gave him a nod, his cheeks flushing. Harris grinned at him. “What’s she like?”

DJ considered that. “Brilliant,” he said at last, the word reverent. 

Tony choked on a laugh. “Thatta boy,” he said, picking up a sandwich. He unwrapped it. “You got a name for this brilliant girl?”

DJ’s hands stilled. “No,” he said. He looked at Tony, a faint smile on his face. “You’ll go looking for her.”

Tony rocked back in his chair, his head bent over the sandwich. “Bet she’s just as brilliant here, as she is there,” he said, his voice deliberately nonchalant. “And I’m always looking for new talent.” The paper crinkled under his fingers, and he tipped his head to the side, checking the contents. But he made no move to take a bite. 

DJ shook his head. “No,” he said. He looked down at the cup in his hands, his fingers flexing. “It’s… Not a good idea.” His eyes flicked up, and then back down. “I know.”

A sharp rap on the door was all the warning they got before it opened, and Director Fury leaned in. “Hey there, Starks,” he said, a hand braced on the doorframe. “How’re we doing?”

“Not panicking,” DJ said.

“Not okay with this,” Tony said, tossing the sandwich aside.

“Not a Stark,” Harris said, and everyone looked at him. He shrugged. “I’m… I’m just making that clear. I’m-” He tried for a smile. “I’m not a Stark.”

Director Fury paused next to the table, looking down the length of his nose at Harris. “I’m going to be honest with you here, Mr. MacIntyre. I have limited head space to devote to you. Until you reach full agent status-”

“No,” Harris said.

“I’ve got two catagories I can put you in,” Fury continued as if he hadn’t said a word. “One, Stark’s problem.”

“No,” Harris repeated. “Sir. Please, no.”

“Rude,” Tony said, eating Goldfish straight from the bag.

“Two, Phil’s problem,” Fury said, and Harris flinched. “So those are your choices, Mr. MacIntyre.” He raised one hand. “A Stark.” He held up the other, like a scale seeking balance. “Or a Coulson.”

 

Harris stared up at him. “Can you… Can you please just forget I exist?” he managed.

“Done.” Fury pulled a chair away from the table and sank down into it with a sigh. He looked up, meeting DJ’s gaze headon, a faint smile on his face. “Seriously. You okay?”

DJ nodded. “Yes,” he said. His fingernail scraped along the side of the cup of soup. He set it down next to his juicebox, his fingers lingering on the lid. “I mean. Considering.”

“Yeah, considering.” Fury leaned forward, folding his arms on the table in front of him. “Phil says you had a bad time at Dr. Strange’s place.”

 

“His house tried to eat me,” DJ said, his voice dark, and everyone went still.

“See, Steve keeps pressuring me to accept these cocktail party invitations with all the other costumed lunatics in this city, and I’ve never had a concrete reason as to why other than, you know, absolutely not wanting to bother, but now?” Tony shook his head, and tossed a fistful of goldfish into his mouth. “Now I’ve got a reason.”

“He know what happened?” Fury said, because Harris supposed he had a lot of experience with ignoring Tony Stark. “And will he be trying to find you?”

“I think so, and I hope so?” DJ said. Fury’s head tipped to the side, and DJ managed a smile. “Otherwise, he has to tell my parents what happened.”

Fury’s eye shut, a momentary shudder running over him. He took a deep breath, rocking back in his chair. “Yeah, when you put it like that, cross-dimensional travel seems a lot more palatable.” He looked at Tony. “Can you recreate the system you used to get him back last time?”

Tony was already shaking his head. “We destroyed everything. Too much of a temptation, even for people who have good intentions, and a potential weapon for anyone without bad intentions.” He picked up a juice box and pulled the straw free with a flourish. “And sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between the two.”

Fury nodded. “You’re telling me that between you and Richards, you can’t manage to piece it together again?”

“Between me, Richards, Jane and half a dozen of the other best scientific minds on earth, we might be able to,” Tony said. “But not with any real confidence. I’m not willing to risk it.” He nodded towards DJ, even as he stabbed the straw home. “I’m not willing to risk him.”

“Thank,” DJ said. His nose wrinkled. “Thank you.”

“Yeah, just like Strange, I’m not looking forward to explaining to your father what happened to you, when he inevitably shows up.” He took a sip of the juice. “Because I know just how stubborn I am when I decide something needs doing, and I know what I’m like when I’m in a bad mood.”

“Yeah, so does everyone else in the room, so, I’m going to thank you for your rare show of good sense,” Fury said. To DJ, he added, “We’re trying to get in touch with our Stephen Strange, but as of yet, no luck.” He leaned back in his chair, his arms crossed over his chest. “All the numbers we’ve got come back with the same message, and we’ve gotten an ‘out of office’ reply to our emails and texts. At this point, we’re looking at sending a team over to the Sanctorum, but as you might guess, that place has a solid ‘no solicitors’ policy, so if he doesn’t want us making it past the fence, we likely won’t.”

“See, this is the problem with magic,” Tony said to the ceiling. “Unreliable.” His free hand bounced against his raised leg, his fingers rattling against his knee. “Nothing from Wong, either? He usually sends an acknowledgement, even if he doesn’t pick up.”

Fury was considering the tray of sandwiches. “Anyone eating this?” he asked, reaching for one. He glanced around the table, waiting for each of them to shake their heads before he picked it up. “Nothing but radio silence,” he said. “Not pleased, but also not surprised.”

“What’s the message?” DJ asked. Fury paused in the act of taking a bite of the sandwich, and DJ leaned forward. “You said. Message. What was it?”

“That he has gone to settle the laws,” Fury said. He took a bite, and chewed carefully before continuing. “What laws, or where that settlement’s happening, we have no idea.” He reached for a juice box. “We’re hoping to get some static off one of our surveillance networks, but magic isn’t usually our wheelhouse. No idea how long it’ll take even if we-”

“Oh,” DJ said. “The Cabal.”

Fury stopped, eyebrow arching. “Huh. Nothing much good starts with a Cabal, but if you’ve got intel, I’l take it.”

DJ nodded. “The laws. The laws governing magic use. On this plane of existence. All the magic users, anyone who can, who can independently work magic, they meet. To figure out the laws,” he said. He dragged one leg up wrapping his arms around it. “If you abstain, or dissent, you are outside the laws.

“So they happen pretty often, you can return to the laws at any time,” DJ finished. “It’s… Important.”

Harris licked his spoon. “Does this happen in like, a separate plane of existence or like, in a magical realm or-”

“Las Vegas,” DJ said.

“I mean, that’s another option, sure,” Harris said, because Fury looked pained and Tony was biting the straw of his juice box hard enough to bend it in half. “Like, a… A floating magical city above Las Vegas or-”

“The Las Vegas convention center,” DJ said.

Harris nodded. “Don’t say it,” Tony said, staring at the wall. “What you’re thinking, I need you not to-”

“Why?” Harris asked, and Tony groaned. Harris flapped a hand in his direction. “You were going to ask, you were just going to do it when I wasn’t around.”

“Because a surprising number of them live there,” DJ said. “And the ones that don’t, love it.” His head tipped forward. “Have you ever seen Owovalrahk, scourge of six realms, destroyer of the dark dimension of Vorkas, first among the ancient ones do card tricks?”

“No,” Harris said. “Is he-” He paused. “She? They? Any good at them?”

DJ shook his head, very slowly. “Not at all,” he said. “But you’re never going to tell them that.”

“Not open to constructive criticism?” Fury asked, a faint smile tugging at his mouth.

“They’re very enthusiastic,” DJ said. “Very enthusiastic. And most humans get a headache after looking at them for more than a minute at a time.”

“Cool, this is all cool, in a very horrifying way,” Tony said to Fury. “And I’m going to get you for involving me in this.”

“Yeah, well, you were going to get me, anyway,” Fury said, waving his sandwich in Tony’s direction. “At least now I get some satisfaction out of it.” He looked back at DJ. “You need a spoon?”

DJ blinked at him, then looked down at the cup of soup he was clutching between his hands. “Oh. No.” He set the cup back down and gave them an attempt at a smile. “No. I’m… Not hungry.”

Fury nodded, but his dark eye was sharp. “Okay,” he said. “Now, you ended up here, and we’re happy to find a safe, comfortable place for you to rest and wait, but you can also go back to the Tower.” His head tipped forward, his eye narrowing. “Last time you were here, you seemed comfortable there.”

DJ smiled. “I can leave now,” he said. His fingers plucked at the edge of the cup’s lid, pushing it up and almost off before shoving it back down. “If I want to.” He looked back at the window, the tension in his shoulders relaxing a little. “But yes. It’s home.” He looked back at Fury. “Or something like it, I guess?”

“You don’t have to,” Harris said. “I’ve got a place, and a cat, wanna meet my cat?”

DJ nodded. “Yes,” he said, his fingers relaxing. He looked at Harris, relief all over his face. “Yes. If I can?”

Tony and Fury exchanged a look, but Harris kept going. “Yes. C’mon. Grab your bag.” He looked at Fury. “My place is safe enough, no one knows he’s here. There’s no reason-”

Fury pushed himself to his feet. “Finish your soup,” he said, collecting the other half of his sandwich. “I’ll arrange for a car.” Harris opened his mouth and Fury held up a hand, stopping him dead. “You will not be taking the subway.”

“A bus, actually, but-”

“No,” Fury and Tony said at once, and they looked at each other with identical expressions of confusion.

“No,” Fury repeated. “That, we’re not doing. He wants to go to your place, we can make that work, but we’re not doing public transportation.”

“Because there’s no way you can get enough people to fill the whole thing before it gets to our stop?” Harris asked, and Fury’s head turned slowly in his direction. Harris shrank down in his chair. “Sorry, sir.”

“I can take them,” Tony said, shaking the last Goldfish out of the bag. “I’ve got a car.”

“Does it have a backseat?” Harris asked. “Because. I’ve seen your cars. And I’m not riding there in someone’s lap.”

“We’ll discuss it,” Fury said, his head jerking towards the door. Heaving a heavy sigh, Tony stood, following him into the hallway.

He looked back. “Stay here,” he said, pointing at DJ and Harris in turns. His eyes darted between them. “Both of you. Expect you both to be sitting there when I get back.”

“Right,” Harris said, and then he waited for Tony to pull the door shut. He looked at DJ. “Want to make a run for the bus?”

DJ blinked at him. “I’ve never been on a bus.”

“Crosstown bus in New York at rush hour is a magical experience of a whole different kind,” Harris said cheerfully. “You ought to experience it at least once.”

“Maybe,” DJ said. “But maybe not now.”

“Maybe not,” Harris said. He dropped the spoon back into the empty soup cup and set it back on the tray. “But it’s hard.” He looked up. “When you feel like you have no control. And maybe the bus isn’t control, but it’s at least it’s something you choose.”’  
‘  
DJ picked up his juice box. “Who does have control?” he asked

And he wasn’t asking about the bus, but Harris pretended to think about it. “I’d say the driver, but honestly, with traffic being what it is, that’s not really true, either.” That won him a small smile, and Harris leaned forward. “C’mon. What do you want to do?”

DJ’s eyes close. “I want to go home,” he said, each word so precise and perfectly still that a shiver went up Harris’ back. DJ’s hands flexed, fingers digging into the paper of the juicebox. “I want. To go. Home.”

There was a flash of light and a sizzle, like a piece of wet vegetation trying and failing to catch fire. Harris could smell something like a crackle, like the scent of burning ozone, like burning hair. 

Stephen Strange stepped through the glowing portal, his feet floating for an instant in midair before he found the floor, stepping down as easily as if he was descending a staircase. His cape swirled in his wake, caught in the wake of the portal for an instant, and then swooping forward to tangle around his legs. He landed, light and easy and confident, and the portal behind him snapped out of existence.

Strange looked at DJ, relief flashing over his face. “By the realms, whatever possessed you to come back here?”

There was a moment of silence, of stillness. A frozen tableau, with DJ staring up at him, his face a blank mask, and Strange’s face wreathed in an imperious, disapproving frown. There was a strange sort of energy in the room, arcing between them, and Harris didn’t know if he should stand, or stay sitting, say something or just run.

Then DJ threw his juice box at Strange’s head.

Strange ducked, the box flying harmlessly past him. He looked over his shoulder, where it had hit the wall, leaving a damp spot, and then back at DJ. “What-”

“Your house,” DJ gritted out. “Tried to EAT ME.”

“Oh.” Strange pulled a chair away from the table and slumped down into it, pinching the bridge of his nose. “My house did no such thing. The-” His face wrinkled up in disgust. “The vermin that is currently infesting my walls tried to eat you. My house did exactly what it was supposed to do. It expelled you before that could happen.” 

DJ crossed his arms over his chest. “Tried to EAT me,” he reiterated, his voice stern, and Strange nodded.

“For that, I do apologize,” he said. He looked at DJ. “I would never have let you in if I truly thought you were in any danger.” He took a deep breath. “You know that, don’t you?”

DJ gave him a look. “Scared me,” he said, and for the first time since he’d reappeared, he looked like a child. He chewed on his lower lip. “It didn’t work. I tried to stop it. It…” His shoulders slumped. “It didn’t work.”

“No, it didn’t,” Strange said. DJ looked down, and Strange sighed. “DJ. If someone has just learned to change a lightbulb, that does not mean that they’ll be capable of rewiring the entirety of a house.” He smiled. “You changed your lightbulb very well. We can build on that.”

“Light bulbs are boring,” DJ muttered, and Harris choked on a laugh.

Hiding a smile, Strange held out a hand to Harris. “Stephen Strange.”

Harris took it. His hand was unnaturally warm, but somehow, not uncomfortable to touch. “His Stephen Strange, I take it.”

“In a manner of speaking,” Strange agreed.

“Harris MacIntyre,” Harris said. “DJ and I met the first time he ended up here.”

“Ah, that-” Strange nodded. “That explains quite a bit.” He looked at DJ. “I’m glad you found your way back to an old friend, but it’s nearly dinnertime. Best we get you home before your father notices you’re missing.”

“You didn’t tell them?” Harris asked, surprised.

Strange winced. “Would you?” he asked. “Best to present their entirely unharmed child before telling the story.”

“And eat dinner first,” DJ said. He pushed the untouched cup of soup away, and stood up. He smiled at Harris. “It’s Taco night.”

“Ah.” Harris stood, too. He tried to smile. “I- I’m glad. That I got to see you again. And that you’re… Doing well. I hoped, you know, that you were okay.”

DJ smiled at him. “I’m okay,” he said. “You, too?”

“Me, too,” Harris agreed. He held out a hand. “Shake? Or hug? I’m okay with-” The breath was knocked out of him as DJ slammed into him, half a hug and half a tackle. Laughing, Harris wrapped his arms around him, giving him a quick, hard hug. “Okay, then.”

“Okay, then,” DJ agreed, giggling as he pulled away. His eyes were red, and he scrubbed a hand over his nose. “Sorry.”

“No sorry,” Harris said, taking a step back as Strange reopened the portal. The air shifted, and Harris had to brace his feet to keep himself from being dragged forward, straight at it. It crackled and swirled, reality seeming to die at the very edges, where the portal cut through it. He tore his eyes away, his hearbeat pounding in his ears. “Be safe. And if you ever have to come back, well, you can crash with me. Okay?”

DJ smiled. “Okay,” he said, as Strange stepped through the portal. Pausing only long enough to grab his backpack, DJ took a step forward, hitting the portal at a jog.

It hit back.

DJ was thrown backwards, crashing into a chair and making a desperate grab for the edge of the conference table to keep himself on his feet. He slipped slowly down to the floor, hitting with a muted thump. And he sat there, staring up at the portal, his face blank.

Harris’ head snapped back towards the portal. “What-”

Strange reemerged. “DJ?”

DJ’s mouth worked. “I can’t,” he managed.

“Can’t?” Strange repeated.

DJ took a deep breath, and Strange’s hand, using it to scramble back to his feet. “I-” He reached out, pressing on the portal and it held, elastic and solid, as if an unseen veil had descended. DJ reared back and crashed forward, hitting it hard. 

It threw him back again, but this time, Harris was there, catching him before he could end up back on the floor. Strange reached out, his hand passing easily into the portal. Confused, Harris did the same, his fingers passing the barrier with only the slightest resistance. It felt like plunging his hand into half-solidified Jell-O, cool and thick, but certainly nothing that could stop him.

“What is-” he started to ask Strange, and DJ pulled away from him, slamming his fists against the portal. Once, twice. He stumbled back, and he was crying now, his shoulders shaking. Harris caught him by the shoulders, only barely aware when the conference room door opened. 

Tony had the gauntlets on, one hand up, the repulsor glowing with barely leashed energy. Behind him, Fury had his sidearm out and ready. Tony took in the situation with a single glance. “What’s going on?”

“I can’t go home,” DJ said, and Tony’s expression went still. DJ looked at Strange. “I can’t go home.”

He took a step back. “Can I?” His voice was very small, and very frightened. He blinked at Harris. “Can I?”

Harris looked helplessly at Strange, and then at Tony and Fury. Tony took a step forward. “You’re going home,” he said, in a voice of such confidence that Harris found himself nodding. “We got you home last time. Didn’t we?” He looked at DJ, his eyebrows arching. “We got you home. And we’ve got more help now than we did then.” He looked at the portal, looked at Strange. “Together. We’ll get you home.”

Strange nodded. “I… Yes.” He looked at DJ. “You know I’ll get you home.” He took a deep breath. “I just need to do some research. Find out why-” He waved a hand through the portal, and it swirled around his fingers like a deep, dark pool of water. “Why only you cannot pass.”

“For now, though,” Fury said, holstering his gun, “perhaps you should go and tell his parents what’s happening.”

Strange took a deep breath. “I’m going to try the research first,” he said.

“Know what? I would, too,” Tony said. 

*

His stomach hurt.

DJ wasn’t sure if it was hunger or stress or fear or something else. He didn’t suppose it mattered much. He shifted in his seat, his arms wrapped tight around his backpack, clinging to the armor like a lifeline. Outside the windows of the car, the city flew past. But at every street light and every stop sign, he found himself scanning the buildings, looking desperately for anything he could recognize.

Anything familiar.

“You okay back there?”

DJ looked up to find Harris peering over the back of the seat at him. He managed a smile and a nod, and Harris smiled back. His face was pale and washed out in the flickering lights, but still, something he knew. Something he was comfortable with.

“You two can take the same suite you used the last time,” Tony said, his fingers beating a rapid tattoo on the steering wheel. “Pretty sure it’s been updated recently. Pepper made me redo all of them. Said it was good for property values, but honestly, I think she just likes interior decorating and spending my money.” 

“Says the guy who keeps trying to replace my furniture,” Harris pointed out, his voice wry.

“Only because you take it as a personal affront,” Tony said. “Also, Darcy is difficult to impress.”

“Darcy is excited by new throw pillows,” Harris said. 

There was something comforting about the flow of the words, and DJ wanted Steve. He wanted Steve so badly that it hurt, but he gritted his teeth, resisting the need to ask. Not his Steve. Not going to be his Steve. Just like this wasn’t his Dad.

But if he closed his eyes, and ignored that nagging voice in the back of his head, he could pretend it was. For just a minute. Two, at most.

“Two’s better than one,” his father said, and DJ’s eyes flew open.

“What?”

Harris and Tony both turned in their seats to look back at him. “What?” Tony asked, as the light turned green.

“Green,” DJ said, and Tony looked back at the road.

“Right.” He hit the gas. “What did you mean, what?”

DJ leaned forward. “You said ‘two’s better than one,’” DJ said. “What did you mean by that?”

“Seatbelt better be on back there,” Harris said.

DJ groaned. “It is, what-”

“Backups,” Tony said. “Two’s better than one, it’s a good idea to have backups, that way if-”

“We need Doctor Strange,” DJ said.

“We have-” Harris started, and DJ rocked forward, grabbing the back of his seat.

“We need YOUR Doctor Strange,” he said, excitement rolling through him. “Mine. He’s working. But two’s better than one. We need to find yours.”

“I’m sure Fury’s-” Tony said.

“He won’t find them, he can’t, you need to be-” The words tangled in his head, and DJ thrust an arm forward, letting the magic flow through him, letting it spark across his skin. “Me. I can find them. They have to, have to let me-”

Tony’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. “No. Nope. Absolutely not.”

DJ blinked at him. “What?”

“No,” Tony repeated. “You are going to Harris’ apartment. You are going to go pet a cat and play video games with Darcy and, I don’t know, I’m sure your Strange will bring your homework, you’ve got homework, don’t you? You’re going-”

“I’m going to Las Vegas,” DJ said, and calm descended for the first time since he’d walked into the Sanctorum today. He smiled. “I’m going to the Cabal.”

“Right, uh, hate to tell you this, but no, you aren’t,” Tony said. “Because you’re fifteen and not from universe, so, hopefully even if you have a credit card and an ID, they won’t work and there is no way you’re scamming SHIELD or anyone else to get you there, so-”

“He, uh, he has a suit of armor,” Harris said, and Tony slammed on the brakes, hard enough to throw DJ forward against his seatbelt.

Tony turned in his seat to face Harris, oblivious to the horns blaring all around them. “He has WHAT?”

DJ held up his bag. “I have armor,” he said. “It flies.” Tony turned around to stare at him, and DJ smiled. “I fly.”

Tony sucked in a long, slow breath. “First of all,” he said, his voice vibrating with something DJ didn’t understand, “why did no one see fit to tell me this?” 

“Probably because no one likes to see the face you’re making right now,” Harris said.

“And second of all,” Tony said, slamming the car back into gear. “I’m going to punch your father in the fucking nose.”

“Right,” Harris said. “Right.” He fished his phone out of his pocket.

“Who are you calling?” Tony asked him. “If it’s Coulson, I’m going to punch him, too, I swear to god, I’m going to punch everyone, he’s twelve and-”

“Fifteen,” DJ said. “Or maybe sixteen, it’s… It’s confusing.”

“Let me explain something here, neither of those numbers is comforting,” Tony said. “Who are you calling?”

“Darcy,” said Harris. “Because I’m not going to Las Vegas with you alone.”

“No one is going to Vegas,” Tony said.

DJ smiled. “Not my dad,” he said. “And I can fly.”

“Hi, Darcy?” Harris said. 

“Don’t you dare,” Tony said.

Harris looked back at DJ. “We’re going to Vegas. Want to come?”


	3. Chapter 3

“You lost my kid.”

Stephen Strange sighed, a faint, almost inaudible exhalation, and Tony resisted the very real urge to lunge over the workbench, straight for his throat. Steve, who knew him a little too well, rested a hand on his shoulder, half comfort and half restraint, and Tony sucked in a long, slow breath from between clenched teeth. “You lost-”

“I didn’t lose him,” Stephen interrupted. “I know exactly where he is.”

“Right,” Tony said, drawing the word out. “You know where he is. You just can’t get him back from there.” Stephen opened his mouth, and Tony’s whole body jerked forward, pulling hard against Steve’s hand. “So I’m not seeing much of an improvement there, what I’m seeing is that you LOST my KID.”

“Tony,” Steve said, his voice quiet, and Tony shook his head.

“Right, sorry, you lost OUR kid,” he said, never taking his eyes off of Strange.

“Not what I was objecting to, but still appreciated,” Steve said. His fingers flexed on Tony’s shoulder, and Tony leaned into it, wanting that contact more than he wanted to admit. “Stephen-”

“He’s safe,” Stephen said. He met Steve’s eyes, his gaze steady and calm. “I’m sorry.” He looked back at Tony. “You’re right. At this moment, I cannot get him back, and I also can’t say why I can’t get him back.”

Tony made a sound, something close to a snarl, caught low in his throat, and Steve moved forward, sliding an arm around Tony’s waist. Tony slumped back against his chest, exhaustion sweeping over him in a sudden, overwhelming wave. He squeezed his eyes shut. “Right,” he managed. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Right.”

“Is he-” Steve stopped, hand his arm tightened on Tony’s waist, his fingers sinking in, clutching, desperate, and Tony’s reached for it, covering Steve’s hand with his. “He’s safe.”

“Yes,” Stephen said, with a wry smile. “I saw him. I spoke to him. He’s about as happy about the situation as you are, but he’s fine.”

Tony felt Steve nod, his chin brushing against Tony’s head. “You’re sure.” Stephen nodded, and Tony’s jaw worked. “How are you sure?”

“He threw a juice box at me,” Stephen said.

“And I’ve never been prouder of my spawn than I am at this exact moment,” Tony said.

“Tony,” Steve said, and Tony shrugged.

“Did he connect?” he asked.

“I ducked,” Stephen said, almost apologetic about that.

“He should’ve expected that and compensated. God knows I’ve had more than one smoothie cup tossed at my head over the years.” Tony leaned back into Steve’s body, needing the support more than he needed air at that second. He took a deep breath. “All right. Enough.” Enough what, he wasn’t sure. Enough panic. Enough emotion. Enough forced inactivity. He met Stephen’s eyes, his jaw set. “What are we doing?”

Stephen stroked a hand over his jaw, fingers sliding over his beard. “Clea has already begun investigating, and I’ve reached out to a few others who might have an insight as to what’s happening.” He reached for the pocket of his vest, and energy flowed around his fingers, solidifying into something that might’ve been a pocketwatch, in another place and time. He looked down at it, and light reflected across the planes of his face, washing over him like waves. 

Tony had the distinct impression that time was not passing like it should. “Can you put that away?”

Stepehn looked up. “What?” He looked back down at the watch. “Oh. Yes.” His hand closed, and it dissipated, light trickling through his fingers for an instant before going dark. He looked up. “I need to speak to an old friend, and I suspect you would not want me to do so here.”

Tony’s head bobbed in a faint nod. “How creepy is your friend?”

Stephen smiled. “Exceptionally.” He adjusted his vest. “I will be back as soon as I have news.”

“Stephen?” Strange looked at Steve, who managed a tight-lipped smile. “If you have news or not, come back and tell us what’s going on.”

There was a moment of silence, and then Stephen nodded. “It will be a few hours,” he said at last.

“Yes, well, none of us sleep on good nights,” Tony said. His head fell back against Steve’s shoulder. “And this isn’t going to be a good night. Is it.”

Stephen nodded, light curling around him. “Then I will be back, in due time.” He took a deep breath, his shoulders rising with the force of it. “We’ll get him back. I swear it.”

Tony nodded back. “I’m holding you to that,” he said, his voice dire, and then Strange was gone, winking out of existence so quickly that Tony didn’t know if he had even heard the end of that sentence. 

Tony squeezed his eyes shut, trying to ignore the way his pulse was pounding in his ears. “God damn, but I hate magic,” he gritted out.

Steve let out his breath in something approaching a laugh. “I’m not much of a fan myself, right now,” he said, his voice raw, and Tony reached back over his shoulder, cupping his cheek in one hand. Steve turned towards his hand. “How’re we doing?”

“Better now that I no longer have to hold myself from bludgeoning a wizard to death with whatever comes to hand,” Tony said. “Because when it comes to things capable of inflicting blunt force trauma, the workshop is an embarrassment of riches.”

“You showed a lot of restraint,” Steve agreed. “I’m proud of you.”

“You fucking should be.” Tony looked back over his shoulder at Steve. His eyes were half closed, his jaw set, his face expressionless. Tony twisted around in his embrace, knowing better than to try to pull away right now. “You all right?” he asked, his voice quiet.

Steve’s arms tightened, an involuntary flex of his muscles, and Tony stroked the nape of his neck, rubbing the tense muscles there. “Yes,” Steve said, and Tony nodded.

“You can lie to me, if that makes it better,” he said, and felt Steve exhale against his temple. Tony kissed him on the side of the neck. “But don’t start lying to yourself.”

“I don’t see why not, it’s worked out so well for me in the past,” Steve said, his voice wry. He pulled back, just a little, and Tony let him go. Steve met his eyes. “What are we doing?”

Tony leaned back against the workbench, his hands gripping the edge on either side of his hips. “Jay, pull anything we had from the interdementional bridge we built the last time our kid ended up in another plane of existence.”

“Most of the schematics were-”

“Deleted, I know, but I also know you.” Tony’s fingertip rattled against the workbench. “Get me anything and everything we’ve still got. I don’t care what kind of breadcrumbs we’re talking about, get me everything.”

“Yes, sir,” Jarvis said.

Tony looked up at Steve, a tight smile on his face. “Might not come to anything, but it’ll keep both of us-” He gestured vaguely at the ceiling, towards one of Jarvis’ cameras. “Busy. And out of trouble.”

Steve crossed his arms over his chest. “It’s worth a try,” he said, and he was trying to smile. “I’ll talk to Thor and his people, see if they have any advice.”

Tony nodded. “I’ll talk to Jane. See if we can’t put the band back together.”

Steve’s mouth twitched. “And-”

Tony grabbed a screwdriver and waved it in Steve’s direction. “Bruce can deal with the lunatic over in the Baxter Building. I’m-” His mouth worked. “Not capable of it right now.” He looked up. “And once he’s back, and grounded for life, you and I are going to have a very long talk about letting him go to Strange’s Deathtrap.”

Steve took a deep breath. “Like you said,” he said, his arms falling back to his sides. “Lie to me if it makes you feel better. But don’t make the mistake of lying to yourself.” He met Tony’s eyes without flinching. “You knew where he was going, and you knew what he was doing there.”

Tony’s mouth worked. “I-” He stopped, his teeth clicking together. “No one told me anything.”

Steve took the screwdriver out of his hand, setting it gently on the workbench. “Happy was driving him,” he said, his voice quiet. “And even if he wasn’t, you don’t miss much, when it comes to that kid.” 

Steve looked up, his eyes sharp beneath the hard line of his brows. “You knew where he was going, and you knew what he was doing there,” he repeated. “And when this is all over, and he’s being spoiled rotten by everyone in this building, we’re going to have a very long talk about why he didn’t tell you, and why you didn’t ask.”

Tony took a breath and let it out. He glanced over at Dummy’s empty charging station. “Fuck it,” he said. “It’ll be worth it.”

Steve caught his jaw, and tugged his head back around, his fingers gentle on Tony’s cheek. “I love you,” he said. “And I need you right now.”

Tony kissed him, hard and fast, and Steve leaned into it. When they broke apart, Tony leaned his forehead against Steve’s, his eyes closed, concentrating on the feeling of Steve’s breath against his lips. “I’m scared,” he admitted, the words thin and soft, and Steve kissed him.

“So am I,” he said. His arms slid around Tony’s waist. “Get Jane and SHIELD.”

Tony nodded, his chin bumping against Steve’s shoulder. “Get Thor.”

Reluctantly, his bones aching with it, he pulled away. “Jay? Let’s get to work.”

*

“How’s he doing?”

Harris leaned back against his kitchen counter. “Well, he walked into my apartment, took his shoes off, asked if he could take a shower and borrow a shirt. Now he’s lying on the floor of my living room, eating Trix directly out of the box, and letting my cat lick water out of his hair.”

There was a pause. “Tony or DJ?” Darcy asked at last.

Harris’ head fell back, and he stared at the ceiling. “DJ.”

“Okay, but how’s he doing?” she asked. “Not WHAT is he doing.”

Harris leaned forward, peeking out of the kitchen door. DJ was still flopped out on the floor, a box of breakfast cereal braced on his chest. “DJ,” Harris called. “How’s it going, buddy?”

DJ raised one arm, giving him a thumb’s up. After a moment, his arm flopped back to the floor. Slink, crouched down beside his head, nuzzled his temple, and DJ’s head lolled to the side.

“He’s great,” Harris said, trying to sound like he meant it.

“Uh-huh,” Darcy said, drawing that out. “Right.” There was some mumbled talking, and Harris’ eyes narrowed. 

“Who’re you talking to?”

“Just the ride share guy,” Darcy said, her voice breezy. “I didn’t want to leave my car at your place, and for some reason, your building doesn’t show up on GPS.”

“Yeah. Wonder why not,” Harris said, and that was a lie but he refused to acknowledge that it was a lie. “Do you need-”

“I know where you live, you dork. Is Tony still there?”

“Tony’s pacing around my apartment, trying to talk Pepper into lending him the private jet without actually telling her what’s going on.”

Darcy made a noise that was just the verbal equivalent of a wince. “How’s that going?”

Harris took a deep breath. “Uh-”

Tony stalked into the kitchen, his phone in one hand and his head cradled in the other. “I’m not dying. Pep. Pep.” He dropped his hand, his head falling back. His eyes squeezed shut. “Virginia. I’m not dying.” His shoulders slumped. “Yes. Yes, I know I’ve said that before. Yes. I know it was a lie then, but it’s not a lie now, how many times do you think I’ll really lie about not, you know, dying?”

He hooked a foot under the edge of the fridge door, pulling it open with a flick of his leg. “Don’t you think I would’ve learned my lesson the last time that I-” From the other end of the line, Harris heard a rattle of nervous words that he couldn’t quite make out. Tony stared at the wall, his expression pained. “No, seriously, Pep, when’s the last time-”

This time, the burst of words was very loud, and Tony held the phone away from his ear. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Well, of course I still lie about THAT, Pepper, but in my defense, so do you! I mean, that’s not nearly the same thing about lying about the fact that I was dying, and yes, that was wrong, I should not have-”

He stopped, and pulled a bottle of beer out of the fridge. He considered it, rolling the neck of the bottle between his fingers. “Right. I make bad choices.”

The bottle rattled against the glass shelf of the fridge as he tossed it back in, grabbing a plastic bottle of water instead. He kicked the fridge door shut. “Look, we’re all dying, Pepper, and yeah, probably I’m doing it at a slightly faster pace than most of the people in New York, because, well, the super hero thing, but in my defense-”

He looked up, and Harris caught his eye. Then he shook his head, very, very slowly, mouthing the word ‘no.’. Tony sighed. “I love you, I’m not dying, and, trust me, really really sorry I ever thought that was something I needed to do.” He walked back out of the kitchen, water bottle pressed to his eyes. “I was trying to spare you, you know that, don’t-”

Harris watched him go. “It’s going great,” he said to Darcy, his voice bright.

“Riiiiiiiight,” Darcy said. “Can you hold it together for another five minutes? I can see your building from here, and I’m still a bit concerned that-”

“I’m fine!” Harris said, and she fell silent. He took a deep breath. “I really am.”

“Three minutes,” Darcy said.

“Two would be better,” Harris admitted.

“I’ll do my best, hold it together, MacIntyre.”

“I’ll do my best,” he repeated back at her, just to make her laugh. Because if she was laughing it couldn’t be that bad. He held onto that, that warm and easy sound of her laughter. “Just.” He stopped. “I’m fine.”

“I know you are,” she said. “I know you are. Tell Tony that he keeps using the word ‘dying’ and that’s not helping, it’s… Women don’t like to hear ‘dying.’ Even if it’s prefaced by ‘not,’ we have this panic response to the word dying and Pepper does not like to panic, so...”

“So?” Harris asked, when she trailed away. Someone was talking in the background, and he was pretty sure he recognized that voice. “Who did you get a ride from?”

“I used the app,” she said, deliberately vague, and when she chose to be vague, there was always a reason. “Women don’t like ‘dying,’ Harris.”

“I mean, men aren’t really enthusiastic about it, either, but he really does think that he’s be reassuring,” Harris said. He took a deep breath. “I think he really is trying, Darce.”

“And that’s the most terrifying part of it,” Darcy said. “Almost there.”

“Thank God,” Harris said, and he meant it. “I need all the backup I can get.”

“Yeah. You do. We’ll be right up.”

“Wait, ‘we?’” Harris asked, but she’d already hung up. He glanced out at the living room, where DJ was offering Slink a piece of Trix. Harris tossed his phone at the counter and lunged across the room, scooping Slink up before he could eat it. “No, no, no,” he said to DJ. “He’s already got a Dorito problem and a Sour Patch Kids problem, we are not acquiring a taste for breakfast cereal.”

 

DJ blinked up at him. “He already ate some,” he said, his tone apologetic.

Harris looked down at Slink. Slink licked a paw, clearly unconcerned. “Of course he did,” Harris said, as Slink wriggled out of his grip, hopping down to the ground with a thump. “If you puke-” Harris called after him as Tony walked back into the room, stepping over the cat.

Slink, uninterested, padded into the bedroom, his tail held high.

“He’s going to puke,” Harris said to DJ, sinking down to sit on the floor next to him. “On something expensive.”

DJ nodded, taking that as given. “You have expensive things?”

“Expensive for ME,” Harris said, smiling at him. He reached out, nudging the box of cereal. “You, uh, do you want some milk or something?”

DJ looked at it, and rolled into a sitting position. “No,” he said, wrapping his arms around his knees. “Sorry.”

Harris managed a smile for him. “Nothing to be sorry about,” he said. 

DJ’s eyes darted towards the Trix box. “Ate all of it.”

“Oh, well, that’s Darcy’s trash, anyway,” Harris said, and this time, the smile felt a lot better on his face. “She’s got an emergency box of Lucky Charms squirreled away somewhere, because I refuse to put that in my closet with the real food.” He leaned back against the couch. “Someday, someone’s going to try to rob this place and they’ll find a box of breakfast ‘cereal’ taped to the ceiling of my closet or something, and think that’s where the drugs are.”

“Are there drugs in here?” Tony yelled from the bedroom. “Pepper. Pep. No, I-”

“There are no drugs here,” Harris said, pressing a hand to his eyes. “Really? There are no-”

There was a brisk rap on the door, and then the rattle of a key. “Oh, thank God,” Harris said to no one in particular. 

“Darcy?” DJ asked.

“Darcy,” Harris said, pushing himself to his feet as the door opened.

“Hey,” Darcy said, leaning into the apartment. “We all good?”

“‘Good’ might be pushing it,” Harris said, his eyes narrowing at her. “So. You got a rideshare?”

“About that,” Darcy said, stepping aside.

“Hi,” Clint said, wandering in after her. “Fare’s $22.45, not including tip.”

Tony stopped dead in the bedroom door. “No,” he said.

Clint grinned at him, his hands tucked in his pockets, a black overnight bag thrown over one shoulder. “Sorry,” he said.

“You’re not sorry,” Tony said, and then, into the phone, “Pepper, I’m going to have to call you back.” There was an indignant yelp from the other end of the call, but Tony had already stabbed his finger on the ‘disconnect’ button. 

Harris winced. “That… Might not have been the best choice,” he said, cautiously.

“It absolutely wasn’t,” Darcy said. She gave Harris a quick kiss, ruffling his hair with one hand. “How’re we doing?”

“I’m having a day,” Harris told her.

“You don’t say.” She smiled down at DJ. “Long time no see, trouble. How’re we doing?”

He held up the cereal box. “I ate your Trix.”

“We are no longer friends,” Darcy said, grinning. He nodded, his face accepting, and she laughed. “I’m just messing with you, mini-Stark.” She took a seat on the couch. “Did it help?” DJ nodded, and she nodded back. “Then I’m glad you ate it.”

“You brought Barton,” Tony said.

Darcy looked up at him. She looked at Clint. She looked back at Tony. “Yes?” she said. Tony pointed at Clint. She shrugged. “Is this a trick question?” 

“No, it’s a-” Tony leveled a glare at Clint. “You’re not coming.”

Clint shrugged. “Okay,” he said.

Tony’s eyes narrowed, suspicion washing over his face. “Okay?” he repeated.

Clint nodded. “Okay,” he said. He smiled at DJ, who smiled back. “Hey, small Stark. Who let you get taller?”

“Makes Steve nervous when I don’t,” DJ said. He blinked, his eyelashes flickering nervously against his skin. “So I try.”

“Right,” Clint said, because Clint didn’t get thrown by much “Glad to see you in one piece.”

DJ smiled at him. “Same,” he said, holding up a hand. 

Clint gave him a high five, and tossed his bag next to the couch before he dropped down next to Darcy. His feet landed on the coffee table with an audible thump. “Going to Vegas, huh?”

DJ nodded. “Think. I can find Strange.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Clint said. 

“Why did you call Clint?” Tony asked Darcy.

She shrugged. “Because everyone else asks questions,” she pointed out. “I call you, I call Jane, I call Thor, even if I call Harris, everyone-” She spread her hands. “Everyone asks questions. I call Clint, and say, ‘I need you to come pick me up, right now,’ and the only thing he asks is ‘where are you?’”

“I’m better off not knowing the details, most of the time,” Clint said. “Though in this case, Phil dropped the dime on the situation, so-”

“You’re not coming to Vegas,” Tony told him. “I’m getting my jet back from Pepper, I’m putting the kid, and his baby-sitter onto it, and we’re going to get this done without any more complications.”

“Darcy’s coming,” Harris said.

Tony opened his mouth, and DJ raised his chin from his knees. “Darcy’s coming,” he repeated, and Tony exhaled, slow and pained.

“Darcy’s coming,” he said, and Darcy smiled up at him, her expression beatific. 

“Right,” Clint said. “So. You, Harris, the kid, and Lewis, in Vegas?” Tony glared at him. Clint looked around. “Anyone in this room who spent six months keeping Lewis from getting shot, getting kidnapped, inciting an international incident, or blowing up a chunk of the sovereign state of New Mexico, raise your hand.”

There was a moment of pause. Clint raised his hand. Then he looked up at it, a faux shocked look on his face. “Oh. Look. Just me.” He gave Tony a wide, enthusiastic smile. “I mean. You want to be responsible for all three of them, you go ahead.”

Tony looked at them. “Harris can-”

“Harris can’t,” Harris said, talking over him. Tony opened his mouth and Harris held up both hands. “Nope. I can maybe take care of myself.” He paused. “Maybe. I”m good for moral support, and that’s about all, I’m-” He looked at Tony. “All in favor of taking Clint with us?”

He raised his hand. Darcy raised her hand. DJ raised his hand. Clint just smirked.

Tony looked like his jaw was going to break. “Give me one good reason-” His phone rang again, and Tony stabbed at it. “Pepper, no, seriously, I can’t tell you why, I just-”

Clint rolled to his feet and took the phone out of Tony’s hand in one fluid, easy movement. “Hi, Pepper,” he said, dancing just out of Tony’s reach. “Phil’s in Las Vegas on an assignment. I’m trying to surprise him.”

Everyone froze. Harris looked at Tony. His mouth was hanging open, his eyes huge. “This-” His eyes flicked towards Darcy. “This seems like-” She was already shaking her head, her teeth digging into her lower lip. Harris leaned back against the wall. “Right.”

Clint paced around the back of his couch. “Yeah, see, thing is, he absolutely keeps track of commercial flights, and anything SHIELD’s got in the air, mostly because I make super bad choices, so there’s no chance that he’ll miss it if I’m suddenly heading in his direction.” He shoved his free hand into the back pocket of his jeans, staying out of Tony’s reach without much difficulty. “I’m sure he also has some idea of what the SI assets are doing, because he’s a scary bastard, but he doesn’t actively track anything unless there’s a gallery exhibit that he’s in town for and he wants a art buddy.”

He paused, his head tipped to the side. “Right. Yeah.” He paused. “I mean. I’m not saying ‘elope’ but-”

“Are you out of your mind,” Tony asked, his voice flat.

Clint covered the phone with one hand. “I’m working here,” he said, and went back. “Of course he’s not going to say yes, Pepper, have you met me? But-” He hopped over the back of the couch, avoiding Tony’s grasping hands and knocking throw pillows in all directions. “Yeah. Yeah, right. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, that’s a good one. I go with ‘fuck it, what’s the worst that can happen?’”

Tony stalked around the corner of the couch, and Clint tumbled over the back, disappearing behind it. His voice echoed out. “You’re the best, Pep.” His head popped up. “No.” He gave Tony a pitying look. “He’s not dying.”

Tony threw his hands in the air and headed for the kitchen. DJ, Darcy and Harris all watched him go, their heads swiveling in his wake like spectators at a tennis match.

“I promise, if he’s dying, you’re the first one I’ll tell, ‘cause that means I can make you tell Steve,” Clint said, folding his arms on the back of the couch. “Right. As soon as we have a registry, you’ll be the first one to hear.”

He pushed himself to his feet. “Oh, come on, who gets married in Vegas these days?” He laughed. “Thanks, Pepper.”

He tapped the surface of his phone with a flick of his thumb. “Did you tell her you were dying?” he yelled.

“Of course I didn’t tell her I was dying,” Tony yelled back. “My first words to her were ‘I’m not dying,’ but-”

“Wow,” Darcy said, drawing the word out. Tony looked at her, and she shook her head. “Wow, no.”

Tony emerged, another bottle of water in his hand. “What was I supposed to-”

She pointed at Clint, who flopped back on the couch, limbs going in all directions. “What he did,” she said. “That. Right there.”

“Right here,” Clint agreed, pointing at himself. He tossed the phone to Tony, who caught it. “I out talked you.”

“Right, and what will happen when she asks Phil about your registry?” Tony asked, bracing a hand on the back of the couch. He leaned in. “The Phil who definitely is not in Las Vegas.”

Clint smirked up at him. “Don’t know if you’ve met Phil,” he said, folding his hands on the flat of his stomach. “Tall guy. Lanky. Would be banned from a poker convention for having zero tells of any sort? Might not have a pulse? Had to reveal he was still alive with a memo that ended up going viral amongst several governmental agencies?” His eyebrows arched. “You’re asking what will happen when your ex-girlfriend and current CEO asks about his wild time in Vegas? Let’s just say that I’m not real concerned about his ability to make up a cover story on the fly, Tony.”

“What if he’s expecting you to, you know, propose?” Darcy asked, taking the bottle of water out of Tony’s hand and sitting down on the ground to pass it to DJ. 

“He’s also not an idiot, Darce,” Clint said. He grinned up at Tony. “So. We negotiating?”

Tony braced his hands on the arm of the couch on either side of Clint’s head, leaning over him. “State your terms, you second rate, knockoff Robin Hood.”

“I give you a reason for wanting and needing the plane without having to explain that there’s one more Stark in the universe right now,” Clint said. “I’ll keep Lewis from lighting anything valuable or irreplaceable on fire.”

“You can try,” Darcy said, her legs out in front of her, her hands braced behind her. 

“I’ll give it my best shot,” Clint said, holding a hand out in her direction. Laughing, she leaned forward, far enough to slap her palm against hers. “She’s very tricky.”

“Yes, she is,” Darcy said. She grinned at DJ. “I consider myself a distraction.”

“Effective,” DJ agreed.

Darcy tossed her hair over her shoulder with a toss of her head. “Very effective.”

“In exchange, I want at least one full buffet every day we’re in Nevada,” Clint said. 

Tony waited, his face expectant. “And?”

“And you can’t say anything when I go to a fifty dollar buffet and eat nothing but eight corndogs,” Clint said.

Tony nodded. “Why would you-”

Clint pointed at the others without breaking eye contact with Tony. “Corn dogs.”

“Yes,” Darcy said, and Harris buried his face in his hands.

DJ looked from one to the other. “What’s a corn dog?” he asked, and everyone looked at him. He blinked. “Is it…” He paused. “Food?”

“It’s food the way that the Trix are food,” Harris told him. “It’s legally defined as ‘food.’”

“Right.” Clint reached up and shoved Tony away as he rolled to his feet. “Buffet. Corn dogs.”

“You’re an idiot,” Tony said, his tone dispairing. “Look-”

Clint held out a hand. “You accepting the terms?”

“You deal with any and all magic,” Tony said.

“I mean, I was going to do that anyway, because you’re bad at it,” Clint said with a grin. He wiggled his hand between them. “We have a deal?”

Tony took it. “So, really. You can’t think of any way that the cover story you’ve just set up has the potential to blow up in your face?”

Clint shrugged. “I mean, that’s the definition of my own life, I don’t dwell on it.” He looked at Harris. “You want to wear your own clothes, go pack. Darcy-”

“I keep an overnight bag here,” she said. “I case of shenanigans.”

“I have a suitcase on the jet,” Tony said, fiddling with his phone. “DJ? We can have some stuff waiting for you at the hotel, if you want?”

DJ’s fingers plucked at the cap of the water bottle. His eyes darted towards Harris. “Can I borrow a shirt?” he asked, his voice soft.

“You’re close enough to my size, you can borrow whatever you want,” Harris said. He paused, not sure how to say this. “Before, we got you Thor’s sweatshirt? Do you want-”

DJ stood in a rush, the unopened bottle toppling to the carpet. It bounced, and Darcy grabbed it, setting it on the coffee table. DJ didn’t seem to notice. “Yes.”

Harris nodded. “Okay. C’mon, we’ll go dig through my closet and find you something you’ll be comfortable in. Otherwise, it’ll be airport tourist t-shirts for everyone.” 

Darcy sat up straight, her eyes going wide. “Can I get a-”

“No one is getting a ‘What Happens in Vegas’ t-shirt,” Tony said, frowning down at his phone, his thumbs tapping away on the surface. 

“Everyone’s getting a ‘What Happens in Vegas’ t-shirt,” Clint corrected. 

Tony leveled a glare at him over the top of his phone. “Really. You’re going to send him back to his parents wearing a ‘What Happens in Vegas’ t-shirt.”

Clint looked at DJ. “Would I give you a ‘What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas’ t-shirt in your world?” he asked. DJ thought about that for a second, and then nodded. “See? On brand.”

Tony took a deep breath, and put his phone away. “The jet’s being fueled up and checked now, by the time we get to the airport, it’ll be ready to go.” He pointed at Clint. “Guess who’s driving.”

“I’ll need you to book that trip through the app.”

*

Tony wasn’t surprised when his phone started vibrating in his pocket. He’d honestly been expecting it before they made it to the airport. Clint, halfway up the stairs to the jet paused, looking back at him. Tony held up a finger in a quick ‘one second’ gesture, and Clint nodded, disappearing through the door.

Tony braced a hand on the railing. “Hi,” he said. “How’s the mission going?”

“Just the clean-up left,” Steve said. 

Tony nodded, the movement instinctive. “Any problems?”

“You would’ve heard, if there was.” Steve sounded faintly amused, and Tony realized he was smiling down at his feet.

“I do like to keep track of your failures,” he said, just to hear Steve laugh. “They’re so few and far between.”

“I try,” Steve said. “Phil says we’ve got a visitor.”

Tony glanced up at the jet. “He give you a full briefing, or the abridged version?”

“He said DJ was with you and Harris, and we were having some trouble finding a way to get him home,” Steve said. 

“Right, the Cliff’s Notes version,” Tony said, rubbing his forehead. “DJ’s apparently apprenticing himself to his universe’s Stephen Strange. Who came looking for him, but for some reason, DJ wasn’t able to utilize the portal he’d created to bridge our worlds.” He took a deep breath. “DJ thinks that our Strange might be able to shed some light on the situation, but he’s AWOL.”

Steve exhaled. “So you’re going to look for him.”

“Yes.”

“In Las Vegas.”

“Trust me, I’m as excited about this prospect as you are,” Tony said with a wry smile. “Probably less. In that you’re halfway around the world with Romanov, who’s competent, and I’m about to get on what used to be my personal jet with an anxious teenager who is looks pretty much exactly like I did when I was waiting to see if my father would remember to pick me up from boarding school, except less drunk, and that’s-” He stopped, shaking ihs head. “Wow, that came out of nowhere.”

“Pretty sure it didn’t,” Steve said. “Nat can handle this, do you need me to-”

“No.” Tony straightened up, and again, nicer this time. “No. It just… Startled me. He’s not me. He’s not his dad, either, he’s just-” Tony checked his watch. “A scared kid who wants to go home, and we’re going to do everything possible to make sure he gets there.”

“By way of Las Vegas,” Steve said.

“I mean, it wasn’t my idea,” Tony said, and Clint leaned out of the door, tapping his finger against his wrist. Tony waved him off. “I should get going.” He paused, one foot on the stairs. “Tell me you’re safe.”

“I’m safe,” Steve said. “Nat’s safe.”

“I don’t care about her,” Tony said.

“The funny thing to me is, that you’ve got a reputation for being a good liar, when in fact, you’re so, so bad at it,” Steve said, and Tony bit back a smile. “I’ll tell her you were worried.”

“I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t.” Tony headed up the stairs. “I love you. You know that, right?”

“I do, but I also really like hearing it, so…”

Tony waited. Steve didn’t volunteer anything else, and he sighed. “Yeah, so do I, so cough it up, Rogers.”

“I love you, I miss you, and I’m going to need you to check in with me in the morning,” Steve said.

“What is wrong with you?” Tony asked, just to hear him laugh. He smiled as he slipped through the door. “Also. Just… So you know. Pepper thinks Clint’s going to Vegas to propose to Phil.”

There was a long moment of silence. “Is he?”

“Well, Phil isn’t IN Vegas, so if he is, that’s- That’s not going to go well,” Tony said. “But since you’re her best friend on the team-”

“You have a better relationship with your ex-girlfriend than most people have with their spouses,” Steve pointed out.

“And she still loves you best,” Tony said. “Just… In case she brings that up.”

“Right,” Steve said. “I love you.”

“I love you, too, now go out there and trip over something so I can feel a little better about my disaster of an existence.’

“I’ll do my best,” Steve said, and Tony cut the phone call. He hated good-byes.

Darcy was bouncing in place on one of the plush seats. “I’m going to play a slot machine and ride the roller coaster and go to a buffet and eat nothing but dessert and take my picture in front of the stupid fountains and-”

“This is not a vacation,” Tony said, leaning over the back of her seat. 

“I believe in multitasking,” she said. She grinned at DJ. “Will you ride the roller coaster with me?”

Tony looked at the kid, who was looking around the interior of the plane with an expression of faint curiosity. “Never have,” he said.

“Never have what?” Darcy asked. “You’ve never been on a roller coaster?”

DJ shook his head. “Or a plane.” He thought for a second. “Or a buffet. Or a hotel.”

“You’ve… Never been on a plane?” Tony asked, sinking down into his seat.

DJ shook his head. “Designed a few. But no.” His foot bounced against the side of his backpack, kept within easy reach. “Have the armor.”

“Oh, this is going to go so well,” Tony said.


	4. Chapter 4

“You’re sure about this.”

DJ heard the question as if from a distance, his attention focused on the car window. There was no pattern to the lights outside, no way of classifying the way they sparked and flickered, each sign on its own timing, each pathway illuminated by a slightly different shade, a slightly different brightness. It was like trying to find the symmetry in a war, in the way that they bounced off of each other, the way they battled and fought and found small holes in each others defenses.

Each hotel, each property, each sign, each spot had its own pattern, its own purpose, its own design. But when combined as a whole, it was chaos, and DJ could’ve stared at it forever, and been happy.

“DJ?”

He started, rocking back into the plush confines of his seat. His backpack shifted in his lap, and he wrapped his arms around it, hugging it back against his chest. His eyes darted away from the window, to find his- DJ stopped, blinking hard. No. Not his dad. Tony was looking over the back of his seat, his face pinched.

DJ tried to smile, because sometimes that helped, when his dad made that face.

Next to him, Harris shifted in his seat, his knee bumping against DJ’s. DJ looked at him, and Harris smiled. “Are you sure about this?” he asked. Darcy, who was seated on his other side, leaned forward, her hair sweeping forward in a wave. It bounced with the movement of the car, and DJ wanted to make it match up to the lights flashing out on the street. 

But everyone was waiting, and he tried to focus on the question. “Sure?” he repeated.

“Are you sure you know where Strange is?” Clint clarified from the driver’s seat. They accelerated through the streets, and DJ’s heels dug into the floor of the car.

“Yes,” DJ said. He paused, blinking. “No.”

“Right,” Darcy said. He liked the way her voice sounded, because she didn’t bother trying to make it do things that it shouldn’t. “That’s… That’s not helpful, Deej.”

DJ’s fingers traced the familiar lines of his backpack. He could feel each plate, and he knew exactly what each one did, where it would sit on the armor when it formed. He smoothed the pad of his thumb over one particular piece, back and forth. “If I was home, I would be sure,” he said, choosing each word carefully. Feeling them form between his lips and his tongue and his teeth, testing them before he gave them breath. “Here? No.” He looked up at Tony. “But… The margin of error is small.”

“Reasonably sure,” Tony said.

“Reasonably sure,” DJ confirmed, already looking back out the window. 

“And I guess that’ll have to do.” In the front seat, he heard Tony shift, his thumbs tapping on his phone. “And ‘reasonably sure’ is about the best anyone can do, with this place.”

“Never tell me the odds,” Clint said. They stopped at a red light, and he craned his head forward, trying to get a better angle out of the windshield. “What time is it? Maybe we’ll see the fountains go off.”

“We’re not going to see the fountains go off,” Tony said.

“How do you-”

“Because I have spent far too much of my wasted life in this city, they go off every thirty minutes before eight pm,” Tony said, sounding bored.

Darcy leaned forward. “Can you hack them?”

Tony twisted around in his seat. “What do you mean, can I hack them? No. I can’t-” He pressed a hand to his face. “No.”

Darcy nodded. “So, you can’t, like, it’s not possible, or you won’t, because you don’t want to bother?”

“Or because it’s, you know, super illegal?” Haris said to her. “Because it is. It would be super illegal. And it’s a casino, Darce. I’m pretty sure they don’t draw a line between ‘got into our systems to make the fountains go’ and ‘got into our systems to siphon all our money.’”

“Are they still mobbed up?” she asked. “Is that why you can’t hack the fountains?”

“I’m not going to hack the fountains,” Tony said, and DJ muffled a giggle in his folded arms. “And if you three don’t zip it, we’re going to turn this car right around and go back to the airport.”

“They’re less mobbed up and more corporationed up, and that’s worse,” Clint said, his fingers drumming on the steering wheel. “At least with goons, you know where you stand. Corporate guys?” He made a scoffing sound under his breath. “It’s not like we’re robbing the place. Hack it.”

“I’m not-” Tony’s head fell back. “Just… Just drive.”

“Can we plan a heist, at least?” Darcy asked. “Sexy siren distraction, elite hacker, some straight up muscle?”

“No,” Tony said, but DJ could hear the smile in his voice.

“I’m not saying we’ll actually go through with it, but there’s traffic and I’m bored,” Darcy said. “DJ. My man. Heist?”

DJ considered the front doors of the nearest hotel. “Heist,” he said.

“Great, we’ll be able to send you back, except we won’t, because you’ll be in jail,” Harris said. “Wonderful.” He looked at Darcy. “No heists.”

She grinned at DJ around him. “Heist,” she mouthed, and DJ grinned back at her.

“Heist,” he said. He leaned forward, ignoring when the bag bumped against his chin and pointed. “There.”

Everyone looked. The sign, hanging just over the strip, read “Welcome to Las Vegas!” and below that, a scroll of different events and their dates.

DJ waited, counting them off until it rolled around again. ‘Attendees of Maaagicon!’

Tony nodded. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

DJ settled back into his seat, balancing his backpack on his knees. “No.”

“Right. Having weighed my options, I’m now on board for that heist,” Tony said.

“Too late,” Clint said, swinging the car into a wide turn and heading them off the strip. “Magicon time, everyone!”

*

“So. It is a magic problem.”

“That’s what Strange thinks,” Steve said, his fingers braced on the edge of Tony’s workbench. He leaned into his hands, letting his head fall forward. His shoulders ached, and he tried to work some of the tension out of them.

There was a slight pause, and then a sigh from the other end of the line. “And in such things, he is most often correct,” T’Challa said. 

“More often than is healthy for my state of mind, yeah.” Tony paced back and forth behind Steve, his movements quick and sharp. Steve glanced back at him, just in time to see Tony run a hand through his already disordered hair. “He’s talking to his people. His-” He made a circular gesture with his other hand. “His contacts.”

“But the workers of the old magics respond to no one, unless it is convenient for them.” T’Challa made a humming noise under his breath. “Sadly, that may mean that they will not respond to me, either.”

“We know,” Steve said. “But-”

“I will try, of course. I have a few favors, that might yet be called in.”

Tony paused, then resumed his pacing. Steve watched him go. “We wouldn’t ask, but-”

“I would do the same,” T’Challa said, cutting him off. “You will be leaving this to the Doctor?”

Steve looked up, and found Tony’s eyes. Tony shrugged, his face set, and Steve exhaled. “For now. He’s supposed to have some more information for us tonight. We’ll…” He straightened up, and Tony resumed his pacing. “Things might change, after that.”

“I understand. If you decide on a more technological approach…” His words trailed away. He knew better than to push.

Tony turned on his heel, snapping his fingers. Jarvis, prepped and ready, threw up a holographic interface, schematics unfolding around him in the air. Steve watched, his jaw set. “You’ll be the first to know,” he said to T’Challa.

“I can be there in an hour. And I will. If you need me.”

Steve looked at Tony’s back, waiting to see if he’d respond. When he didn’t, Steve nodded. “Thank you. We’ll be in touch.”

“As will I. Keep me informed, my friends.”

Steve said good-bye, his eyes locked on Tony’s back. Once Jarvis disconnected the call, he took a deep breath. “You could’ve been more help there,” he said, his voice mild.

“I didn’t actively swear or throw anything,” Tony said. “So I could also have been worse.” He was flipping through holographic folders, pulling out diagrams and schematics, setting up columns of numbers all around him, like a wall, like a cage. “Which you know.”

“Oh, I absolutely know.” Steve shook his head. “Can you please-” He stopped, the words caught behind his teeth, and he focused on his breathing for a moment. “We need to consider all options at this point.”

“Right,” Tony said, his voice brusque, and Steve pushed away from the workbench.

“I know you don’t think that-”

“He can’t help us right now,” Tony said, cutting him off. “It’s not going to hurt anything, but Steve, it’s not going to help, and you-”

“I’m going to try anything and everything,” Steve said, and Tony went silent. “Don’t worry. You-” He gestured at the workshop at large. “You’ve got what you need, you keep doing what you’re doing, and I’ll-” He shook his head. “I’ll do nothing.”

He turned towards the door, his shoulders tense, his back straight. “Or at least, nothing of any use.”

“We’re not repeating what happened last time.”

Steve glanced back over his shoulder. Tony hadn’t looked away from his work, his fingers darting through the holographic projections with a speed that Steve could barely track. His fingers were a blur of movement, cutting through the light with total assurance. From the outside, it was a dance, it was a spell, it was miraculous.

Steve never tired of watching it. He braced a shoulder against the doorframe, his arms crossed over his chest. He took a deep breath. “We’re not repeating… What?” he asked, and Tony’s head tipped in his direction, his eyes hidden beneath the sweep of his lashes. 

“Eat something,” he said, and Steve’s shoulders twitched, a flinch that he did his best to hide. But Tony turned back to his work. “We’re not doing this again. You’re not helping him, starving yourself.”

Steve exhaled. “I wasn’t-” he started, and Tony’s fingers paused, numbers cascading past his palms, the whole thing in freefall in an instant. “It wasn’t deliberate.”

“I know.” A beat of silence, of stillness, and then, Tony swung, one hand cutting through the holograms in a vicious, roundhouse punch. The light shattered, raining down to nothingness. Tony turned to face him. “I know.” His shoulders rose and fell, something like a shrug. “I mean. I’m the last one here to attack anyone’s coping mechanisms, because, God knows, mine are fucked up, they are, and I know they are.”

Almost against his will, Steve felt himself smile. “I was going to say.”

“No, you weren’t, because you’re too smart for that, I can hear you start, and catch yourself, and it’s- It’s-” Tony rotated his shoulders, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet, all leashed tension and strain, pulsing along the length of his frame. “I know. We do what we have to do, to keep our heads somewhere useful, somewhere…”

He looked at Steve, something haunted in his eyes. “Manageable.” He took a deep breath. “But this. Doesn’t help.” He blinked, once, twice, his head twitching to the side, his head falling forward as he rubbed the back of his neck. “He needs you.”

Something like a laugh forced its way past the lump in his throat. “No. He doesn’t.” Tony looked up, and Steve spread his arms wide. “I can’t do anything. I’m…” His hands fell back to the side, the slack emptiness of his fingers somehow worse than any fist he could’ve made. “I can’t do anything for him.”

Tony studied him, his eyebrows cocked. “Except suffer.”

Steve made a face. “I’m not-”

“This is the most Catholic thing I’ve ever seen you do, and that’s, that is saying something,” Tony pointed out.

“I’m not-”

“Yeah, but the Protestants just don’t have suffering down to an art the way the Catholics do,” Tony mused. Steve gave him a look, and Tony smiled. “You know I’m right.”

Steve shook his head. “Let’s leave the theological debate of the nature of suffering until another day, because I’m not-” He tried for a smile, and it hung on his lips, uneven and broken. “I can’t do anything for him, Tony. And I’ve never been real… Good at forced inactivity.”

“Yeah, but you can’t outflank everything,” Tony said. He lifted one hand, and Jarvis, attuned to his every move, his every gesture, began building the holograms up again. Light crested around his fingers like waves, forming itself into numbers, into words that barely made sense to Steve. He’d feel bad about that, but he was pretty sure that they didn’t make sense to anyone other than Tony, a scientific shorthand that he shared with his AIs. “Here’s a question for you. Is the lighthouse useless, just because it can’t go out to sea to fetch the ship?”

Steve reached up, one finger ghosting across a diagram. It fit to his palm for an instant before falling into place. “It’s not the same.”

Tony inhaled. “You are the rock we all set our anchors by,” he said, and Steve looked up. He found Tony looking directly at him, his eyes glowing blue with the reflected light. “It might not seem like much to you, Steve. But for the rest of us?” His lips twitched, an attempt at a smile, sad and hollow. “It is the only thing that matters. Even if you never did anything else. Even if you couldn’t. You are the beacon. You bring us home.”

Steve opened his mouth. Closed it. Tony held out a hand to him. “He needs you. We all need you.”

Tony’s hand was as familiar as his own, now. The flex of the bones and sinew, the stretch of his fingers, the hollow of his palm, Steve knew it all. And yet, every single touch startled him. Every time Tony tangled his fingers with Steve’s, it was a surprise. Every sweep of his thumb and squeeze of his palm and pull of his hand confused him, in the best possible way.

Tony wrapped his free arm around Steve’s back, pulling him in, coaxing Steve into the shelter of his body. Steve buried his face in Tony’s shoulder, his breath shuddering in his chest. Tony’s fingers tightened, digging in, like he was afraid that Steve would somehow slip out of his grip. “Sorry,” Steve whispered against his neck.

“I think I can safely echo something a wise, kind man said to me once,” Tony mused. “And say, ‘being sorry’s fine, but let’s try to be better.’”

Steve smiled against Tony’s shoulder. “Was that me?”

“Might’ve been you,” Tony said, his fingers smoothing Steve’s hair down. Steve raised his head, just far enough to meet his eyes. Tony was smiling at him, slight and warm. “Don’t know if anyone’s ever told you, but you’re kind of an ass sometimes.”

“Really just insufferable,” Steve agreed.

“But also usually right.” Tony cupped his cheek in one hand. “It’s… It’s really fucking annoying. You know that, don’t you? The fact that you are so...” His mouth kicked up on one side. “So often right.”

“I’m not the only one,” Steve said, and he leaned forward, and Tony met him halfway. The kiss was soft and sharp, familiar and frightening, all at once. When they broke apart, Steve hovered close, savoring the smell of Tony’s skin and the heat of his breath. “We done with this fight?”

“Eh,” Tony said, and Steve grinned against the skin of his neck. Tony tipped his head to the side, giving him free rein. “I’d say it doesn’t even count as a fight, but God, I like the makeup sex.” Steve choked on a laugh, and Tony chuckled against his hair. “And so do you, let’s not pretend otherwise..”

“I think we both know what I like,” Steve said. “And it’s mostly you.” He pulled himself away, inch by painful inch. “I’ll eat something.”

“Right.” Tony let him go, letting Steve slip free of his grip. “Now.” Steve looked at him, and Tony gave him a bright smile. “You’ll eat something now.”

“I’m not-”

“Don’t care, long list of things I give no fucks about, and way, way, way on the top is ‘if Steve is actually hungry,’” Tony said, waving a hand through the air. He turned back to his work, and it was waiting for him, frozen in space and time, missing only his touch to come to life again. “You can force something down.”

“For you?” Steve asked.

“For him,” Tony corrected. He swept a hand through the air. “But maybe also a little bit for me, because I like it when things are about me, especially you-type things.”

Steve reached over Tony’s shoulder, catching a small equation that had tried to slip away, and pushing it back into place. “Let’s make a deal,” he said. “I’ll eat if you do.”

“And the whole ‘making everything about me’ thing has immediately backfired,” Tony said, and Steve loved him so much it was a physical ache. Tony glanced back at him, light playing across the planes of his face, along the curve of his lips, lighting sparks in the depths of his eyes. “Fine. I know when I’m outflanked.”

“You’ll eat?” Steve asked.

“I’ll eat.”

“Food,” Steve specified. Tony’s mouth opened, and he continued, “Not a smoothie.”

Tony’s mouth closed. He sighed. “It would be helpful if you knew me a little less,” he said, reaching for his coffee cup. Steve got there first, slipping it out from under his hand. Tony stared down at his empty hand. “Right. A lot less.”

“I’ve got to be helpful, somehow,” Steve said, the words wry. He picked up a few other cups, piling them up in the crook of his arm. “I’ll make a couple of sandwiches.”

Tony nodded. “Steve?” Steve looked back at him, but Tony was back at work. “You’ve been my guiding light through troubled waters for a long time. Longer, maybe, then you’ll ever know.” His chin dipped in a slight nod. “I will always need you.”

Steve stood there, an empty cup dangling from one hand. “You really believe that, don’t you?” he asked, his voice quiet.

“I don’t believe it, I know it,” Tony said, his head cocking to the side. “Everyone knows that, Steve. You’re the only one who doesn’t.”

There was something steady and solid in the words, something stable to the way he said it, that Steve couldn’t quite define. He’d spent his entire life feeling like he was standing on shifting sand, waiting for the ground to fall out from under him, struggling to find his footing. Every time he thought he’d find it, it slipped away from him, knocking him off balance again.

Steve shook his head. “What’s the difference between believing and knowing?” he asked, for the lack of anything else to say.

“I thought you didn’t want to have a theological discussion tonight,” Tony said, and he was smiling. Steve could hear the smile in his voice. He was moving to a beat that Steve could almost hear, could almost feel. “But if you’ve changed your mind…”

“Sandwich first,” Steve said, and then, “I love you.” It was a prayer and a benediction and as close to religion as he got these days. 

Tony smiled. “I love you, too,” he said, building miracles with numbers and simple gestures. “Let’s get our kid back.”

*

“Hi!” The girl behind the table marked with a sign that read ‘Registration’ in large, wobbly letters gave Tony a bright smile. “Welcome to Maaagicon!” She drew the word out, a sing-song sort of sweep to the letter a. “Did you pre-register?”

Tony studied her. She was the only one in the registration area, other than an older man in a checkered waistcoat and a cape, leaning against a nearby wall, squinting down at a clipboard. Tony didn’t want anything to do with him, or the wooden wand tucked in the pocket of his vest.

All in in, the girl was the safest choice, even though it looked like she was barely out of high school, with curly dark hair that bounced around her shoulders and a nose covered in freckles. She was wearing an oversized witch hat in a truly appalling shade of yellow. It read “Staff” across the front of the hat in the same ‘wacky’ font that all the signs used. “Do they make you wear that hat?” Tony asked, unable to tear his gaze off of it.

Her eyes went up, staring at the inside of the hat’s brim. Tony wondered if it was as bad from her angle as it was from his. “I kinda like it,” she said, folding her arms on the table. “I mean, the color’s a little much, but-” She bounced up and down in her seat, making the brim bob. “It’s fun!”

“Really,” Tony said, because that was not fun at all from his perspective. He squeezed his eyes shut. “If I-” He waved a hand at the doors at the end of the hallway, decorated to look like stone, covered in runes. “If I go in there, will I have to wear a hat?”

“I mean.” Her eyes darted to the side, following his gesture. “There are a couple of vendors selling hats, but no one’s going to make you wear one.” She adjusted the hat on her head. “And you can’t have one of these unless you’re staff.” She paused, blinking. “Do- Do you want to sign up to be staff?”

Tony stared at her. She stared back. “No,” he said.

“Okay!” she said, grinning wide and bright. “So would you like to buy a pass? The show floor is closing in just about-” She picked up her phone, squinting down at the face of it. “Just over an hour. So I can sell you a one day pass, but it’s really not worth it, and the full pass is only worth it if you’re staying until Monday, but we have a weekend pass that’ll get you in for tonight and tomorrow, so that’s-”

“Passes,” Tony repeated, and she nodded.

“To Maaagicon!” she said. He nodded. She nodded back. “Aren’t… You here for the convention?”

“I.... Might be,” Tony said. He hold up a finger. “One moment.”

She smiled at him. “Okay! But Registration closes in 30 minutes. Just so you know!”

“Right,” Tony said, and walked down the hallway and back to the main hotel lobby. He gave the sign sitting on a crooked easel a suspicious look as he passed by. The hotel lobby had the sort of shabby desperation of a property that had once been a much fancier establishment, but at least there were people here.

DJ was sitting on the edge of a battered plush chair, his hands braced on either side of his hips, staring up at dusty chandelier that hung in the middle of the ceiling. Tony stopped in front of him. “This cannot be the place,” he said.

DJ’s chin came down, and he blinked at Tony, his expression blank for a moment. He tipped to the side and looked at the signs that were plastered all over the side hallway, covered in cardboard witch’s hats and cheap costume shop wands. He looked back at Tony. “Yes.”

Tony took a deep breath. “You need to-” He waved a hand. “Let’s go.”

Obediently, DJ stood up, just as Harris came up behind his chair. “You were supposed to stay with Clint,” he said. “With the car.”

“Yeah, I was never going to do that,” Tony said. “C’mon, kid.”

“Tony-” Harris started, but Tony wasn’t listening any more.

He marched DJ across the lobby over to the hallway. He stopped there, one arm wrapped around DJ’s shoulders. “There is no way this is the right place,” he said, as the door at the end of the hallway opened, revealing a bustling ballroom full of tables and people. A group of people dressed in what he could only describe as multicolored genie outfits came out, laughing and chatting with each other. In their midst was a single person who seemed to be wearing a pumpkin.

Tony stepped aside, letting them pass. He was pretty sure they left glitter in their wake. “No,” he said.

DJ nodded. “Yes.”

“Car,” Harris said from behind them.

“I’m not spending the entire weekend in the backseat of a car,” Tony told him. “I mean, I’ve done it before, but not a rental car.”

“Nice to know you have standards,” Harris said. “DJ-”

DJ took a deep breath. “Would you believe, something important is happening here?” he asked Tony. He looked at Harris. “Would you?”

“No,” Tony said, before Harris could say anything. “DJ. No.”

“And that’s why it’s the best place, for something important,” DJ said. “Because it looks like this. No one else would believe it, either.”

Tony opened his mouth, and nothing came out. “He’s got a point,” Harris said.

“Stay here,” Tony said to DJ as Clint walked up, tossing the keys into the air. “Stay with Clint.”

“Stay with Clint,” Clint parroted. “Where’s Clint going?”

“Nowhere fast, I suspect,” Tony shot back. He turned on his heel and stomped back down the hallway to the registration desk. The girl in the appalling hat looked up from her phone with a bright smile. Tony tried to smile back. “Hi-”

“Hi, welcome to Maaagicon!” the girl said. “Did you pre-register?”

Tony tried not to flinch. “We just- No. I don’t care. Why… Why are you saying it like that?”

Her smile dimmed, just a little, and one shoulder rose and fell in a slight shrug. “It’s the only way we can copyright the name,” she said, her nose wrinkling beneath the bridge of her glasses. “If it has three letter a’s. So we have to make sure that we always pronounce all of them.” She took a deep breath.

“Please don’t,” Tony said.

“MaaagicCon!” she crowed, and he resisted the urge to scrape both hands over his face.

“How do I make you stop?” Tony said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out his credit card. “How do I make all of this stop?”

The girl’s smile died completely. “Sorry, I-”

“Excuse me, give me a minute.” Harris stepped between Tony and the registration table. “Can you not?” Harris stared at him, his eyebrows drawn up in a sharp line. “Can you-” He waved a hand behind him. “She’s saying it like that because there’s a guy over there in a bow tie and holding a clipboard, and I know you’ve never had to deal with a supervisor in your entire life, but for everyone else on Earth, we know what that means. She’s saying it like that because she has to, because that guy-” He stabbed a finger in the man’s direction. “Is watching her to make sure that she DOES say it like that, so can you be less of an ass about it?”

There was a beat of silence. The girl cleared her throat. “Gary’s actually pretty decent,” she said. “He knows it’s bullshit, but he gets in trouble if he doesn’t yell at us about it, so pretty much we all try to do it because he doesn’t, you know-” Tony stared at her, and she gave a little shrug, looking sheepish. “It could be a lot worse.”

“Capitalism!” Harris said, throwing both hands in the air.

“Is this- Is this some sort of breakdown?” Tony asked him, and Harris pointed back towards the lobby.

“If you can’t pretend to be polite, you can wait over there, while the rest of us get through this,” he said. Tony opened his mouth, and Harris stabbed a finger towards the door. “No. If you can’t be civilized, then you can wait over by the souvenir table. Pick out a shirt. I don’t care. Just be polite, for once in your life.”

“I’m not sure what’s happening here,” Tony said, caught between amusement and insult.

“Go,” Harris said. He turned towards the registration desk, then immediately pivoted back towards Tony. “And give me that.” He snatched the credit card from Tony’s fingers, giving him a look. “Were you raised by wolves?”

“Boarding schools, mostly,” Tony said, amusement winning out.

“Right, I don’t need guilt right now, I’m not feeling guilty, my parents are dead, too,” Harris told him.

The girl’s eyes were darting between them now, huge behind the round lenses of her glasses. “Are… I’m so sorry for your loss?” she managed when they both swung around to look at her. She hugged her clipboard tight, her shoulders hunching. “My parents are alive but kind of, you know, we’re not close, she doesn’t like my girlfriend, or the fact that I have a girlfriend, or me, but, you know, they are still alive, and sometimes I don’t know what to do about that, because-”

“Please make this stop,” Tony said, desperate now.

“Darcy,” Harris called, but Darcy was already there.

“They’re horrible, you’re valid, give me your number,” Darcy said to the witch, leaning around Harris to hold out her phone. “Tony, go back out to the lobby and distract Clint from the rack of shiny brochures, we’re going to end up at the world’s biggest ball of twine or something, because he has no taste and DJ is doing nothing to dissuade him.”

“Why do you think I can?” Tony asked her.

Her head swiveled in his direction. “Because you’re the only one who’s going to suffer at the world’s largest ball of twine,” she said. “I’ll do anything for a stupid instagram photo, Harris been to three garlic festivals this year-”

“It was only two,” Harris said, and Tony gave him a look. Harris cleared his throat. “And they were very different.”

“Keep telling yourself that,” Tony said, as Darcy took her phone back.

“Go,” she said, pointing at the lobby doorway.

“I want it noted that I object to every part of this,” Tony said.

“Object from OVER THERE,” Darcy told him. “Because DJ’s looking very tense and if you add to that-”

“I’m going,” Tony said.

“I’m sorry,” Harris said to the girl. “He’s usually very kind, he’s just under a lot of stress, there’s like, there’s things going on and magic freaks him out. Usually, he’s one of the nicest people I’ve ever met.”

“You shame Maaagicon with your lies, MacIntyre,” Tony said over his shoulder, and everyone looked at him. “That was loud. That was louder than intended. That-” He pointed at Darcy. “Fix this, Lewis.”

“Fixing it,” she said, taking his credit card from Harris and sliding it across the registration desk. “Give me six of your most expensive passes, five adults and one child, and if he keeps this up, I’m going to make Tony make the child pass.”

“There is a distinct lack of respect here,” Tony announced, stomping back to the lobby. Clint was standing next to the main doors, pouring over what looked like a large map of the strip. Next to him, DJ was tidying the rack, looking more relaxed than he had since he’d arrived. “Do you ever feel like you don’t get the proper amount of respect?” Tony asked Clint.

Clint didn’t look up from the map. “No,” he said. “Have you met me? I’m surprised anyone respects me. Like. At all.”

“I respect you,” DJ said.

“Yeah, cause you don’t know me,” Clint said. 

Tony gave him a look. “Let me rephrase. Do you ever feel like I don’t get the proper amount of respect?”

Clint flicked down a corner of the map and gave Tony a look over the edge. “No,” he said, his voice flat, and went back to his map.

Tony snatched it out of his hands. “Look, I-”

Clint groaned, his eyes rolling up towards the ceiling. “Stark. Seriously. No. No one respects you, because you hate everyone who respects you. You-” He spread his hands. “Hate them.” 

Tony blinked. “I don’t-”

“You do! Every important person in your life has looked at you and in under thirty seconds has gone, ‘yeah, you’re full of bullshit, and I’m not dealing with it,’ and that’s the way you like it. People who respect you have proven that you can play them, that you can sell them whatever nonsense you’re peddling, and therefore, you hate them,” Clint said. He snatched his map back from Tony’s lax hands. “Rhodes. Potts. Rogers. The rest of us. We’ve all looked at you and gone, ‘under that fancy haircut, those smug sunglasses, and ten thousand dollar suit, you’re a mess of a human being who’d prefer to be hiding in his basement playing with his robots,’ and that’s the only reason you tolerate us.”

Tony stared at him. “Did you just insult my hair?” he asked at last.

“I sure as fucking did,” Clint said. He shook the wrinkles out of his map. “And we’re going to like, at least one Cirque du Soleil show.”

Tony looked at DJ, who was considering the backs of a couple of brochures. “Do I-”

“Your hair is nice and your bots love you best,” DJ said. He held up a brochure. “This is dated 1982.”

Clint looked at it. “Yep. And I bet it’s still accurate.” He took it from DJ, and tucked it into his pocket. “We can go and find out.”

“No,” Tony said. He realized he was fussing with his hair, and forced his hand back to his side. Clint was smiling at him, and Tony considered flipping him off. “We’re not going anywhere.”

A plastic tag on a string lanyard was dangled in front of him. “We’re going to Maaagicon,” Darcy said, sing-songing her way through the word. “And so are you.”

Tony took a deep breath and reached for it. “Under duress,” he said, his voice dark, as Darcy handed out the badges to the others. “What did this cost me?”

“Nothing,” Harris said. His pass hanging from his hand, he handed Tony his credit card. “We put it on mine.” Tony frowned at him, and he made a face. “We had to.”

“What? Why?”

Darcy took the map away from Clint. “Because once you left, Georgie mentioned that she really loved your costume.”

Tony paused. “My… My what?”

“She said you’re the best Tony Stark cosplayer she’s seen all weekend,” Harris said. Tony stared at him, and he shrugged. “I mean. Plus side. You’re the best ‘you’ she’s seen.”

“I’m not seeing that as a plus,” Tony said. 

“Wait.” Clint held up a hand, his eyes huge. “Wait. Wait.”

“No,” Tony told him.

“I can dress up as Tony?” Clint asked, an unholy glee lighting the words.

“No. You cannot, because if you try it, I’ll stab you with something,” Tony said.

“Every person I’ve ever been in a relationship with has stabbed me at least once, you think I’m scared of THAT?” Clint asked. “Actually. New plan. Group cosplay. We’re all going as Tony Stark.”

“Yes,” Darcy said, her eyes huge. “Tony. Give me your sunglasses. I will be the best Fem-Stark ever.”

“No,” Tony said, but he had already handing them over. “Let’s go, you vultures. Maaagicon time.”

*

It took a single look for Tony to know the news wasn’t good.

Steve, being Steve, held out hope longer than he did. He barely waited until Strange floated to the ground, the portal folding out of existence behind him, before he spoke. “What do you have for us?”

Strange’s cape floated around his legs, refusing to settle, even after its master went still. “Nothing,” he said, with a slight, strained smile. “I’m sorry. Clea is working in my stead even now, so we don’t lose ground. But as of right now?”

He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I have nothing for you.”

Steve nodded, and Tony studied the sharp, hard line of his jaw, the angle of his brow. He set down his welding torch, letting it drop to the workbench from just enough of a height so it would clatter against the steel top. It wasn’t much. But it was enough to get Steve’s attention. He looked over, and Tony smiled at him, stripping off his gloves. “Right. We’re-” His head tipped in Steve’s direction. “Mostly Steve, honestly, but we’re working on some other angles.” 

Tony tapped a fingertip against his phone, bringing up the display. “It’s late. Or early.” He scraped a hand over his face. “Far too early.” He looked down at his hands, braced on the edge of the workbench. “We all need some sleep.”

“Is he-” Steve stopped, his throat working, and Tony glanced at Strange.

“We don’t appear to be on a one to one ratio of time,” Strange said, his voice quiet. “It’s… Earlier there. But yes. I’m sure he’s tired. I’m sure he needs to sleep.” He held out a hand, and a watch formed in his hand, a glittering chain tracing its way back to his vest pocket. “I’ll check on him. Before I go back to work.”

Steve was already shaking his head. “You need the rest, as much as everyone else.”

“And I’ll get it, once I’ve talked to a few others.” Strange glanced from one to the other, and there was strain on his face, the lines beside his eyes and bracketing his mouth carved deep. “They’re expecting me, and any further delay…” 

His voice trailed away, and Steve nodded. “We appreciate it.” He straightened up, picking up the envelope from the workbench. “But if you could see DJ first? We have a letter for him.”

“I wanted to send a video, but the throwback here seems to think that he’ll find the printed word more comforting,” Tony said, and he wasn’t sure if Steve was right about that or not. But it had saved him from the humiliation of struggling to find something to say to the unblinking eye of a camera. Steve had volunteered, and he’d let him, because he was at the end of his rope.

And he was doing his best not to let the last, unravelling strands slip through his fingers.

Steve handed over the envelope, and Strange took it, the watch disappearing from his hand. He slipped the letter into his vest. “I’ll make sure he gets it immediately,” he said. “And I’ll be back in the morning, with another update.”

“Thank you,” Steve said, his hand still hanging in the air. It dropped back to his side. “We’ll… Tell the rest of the team.”

“Tell him not to cause interdimensional problems, I don't know how I’d pay for that,” Tony said, tucking his hands into his back pockets. He managed a smile for Strange. “But I’ll do it. If I have to.”

“I’m sure he’ll be relieved to hear it.” Strange gestured behind him, light flaring around his hand, and the portal opened, flickering into place. He paused on the threshold. “Get some sleep. Please.”

 

Tony nodded. “You, too.” Next to him, Steve raised a hand in a wave. “Tell him… We love him.”

“That, he already knows.” With one last nod, Strange turned, and disappeared into the glowing portal.

Tony watched him go, his teeth gritted, his chest aching. “Right,” he said. “I-”

“When this comes up later,” Steve said, his voice tense, “remember, you pulled it first.”

Startled, Tony’s head swung around. “I-”

Too late, much too late, he realized Steve was moving, legs unfolding in a step, two, then a flat run, and before Tony could do more than stumble forward, his hand grasping desperately for the back of Steve's shirt, Steve was out of range, out of reach, through the portal and gone.

The portal slammed shut with a crackle of light, and Tony, left utterly alone, stumbled forward a step, and then two, his hand still reaching for something no longer there.

He collapsed to the floor, his mind a wasteland, blank and empty and silent.

He was alone.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for some drunken bad choices on Tony's part. No major injuries or long term problems will result, but he's a jerk

This might’ve been a mistake.

But once in, there was no way out, except to continue forward. Steve was used to that. To just making the best of a bad situation. To trying to make it to the other side of a bridge as it burned away behind him, as it burned under him.

He would’ve preferred that to being halfway between universes with no sure way forward. Or back.

Steve had passed through Strange’s portals in the past, slipping seamlessly from one place to another in just a step or two. He hadn’t thought much of them then, mostly because they were the means to an end, and the end was ‘stop the world from ending’ most of the time. He’d used them because there had been no other choice, no other safe way, or no other expedient way.

Which, he supposed, was no different as to why he’d used it today. The only difference really was, every other time he’d stepped through a portal, Strange had known he’d been there.

It appeared that was what made the difference.

The portal stretched in all directions, a chaotic space with no ground or sky, no up or down, just a constantly shifting landscape, all flat planes and sharp edges. There were colors he had no words for, glowing with a light that made his stomach twist, a sick, nauseous feeling of something being very wrong. Some instinct, buried deep, knew this was wrong, and wanted nothing more than to get loose of it, to get free, to put his feet back on ground that would bear his weight.

He pushed forward, and he had no idea where ‘forward’ was anymore. He had no idea where he was going, if it was the right way, if there was a way, if there was anything other than the place where he was, like being trapped in a kaleidoscope, always shifting, always turning, the world altering catastrophically with every single step.

He was lost. And still, he moved forward.

Wherever forward ended up being.

Directly ahead of him, a flicker of light lashed out, like a tongue of flame pushed by the wind. But this moved, seemingly on its own, to wrap around Steve’s wrist, biting against his skin. Before he could panic, before he could draw breath to scream, the light burned away, leaving a very human hand in its wake.

The fingers tightened, and pulled, and Steve went.

Reality crashed in on him like a wave, less like he entered a new world and more that it formed itself around him. As if he had always been there. As if he belonged.

As if the very ordinary concrete beneath his feet should be familiar.

“Well,” Stephen Strange said, his fingers still wrapped around Steve’s arm in a deathgrip. He was strangely pale, his dark eyes bright as he took a deep breath. “That was monumentally stupid.”

Steve took a breath, and immediately coughed. “Yeah,” he managed. “I… hear that a lot.”

“Somehow, I’m not surprised.” Strange shook his head. “This way. Sit down before you fall down.”

He stepped back, and for the first time, Steve got a clear view of where they were. A park. In a city. His head tipped back, and he stared up at the blue sky, fragmented and hidden by the sharp lines of the buildings that stretched up above them. The park was tucked between the buildings, a small path that lead through a patch of grass and trees, with a handful of benches scattered along its length. Steve inhaled, and it still burned, but the air no longer felt foreign in his lungs. “New York?” Steve asked, his pulse thudding in his ears.

“New York,” Strange confirmed, nudging him towards a bench. Steve sank down, only now becoming aware of how his legs were shaking. “But not the New York where you belong.” He crossed his arms over his chest, his face set in a scowl. “Give me one good reason why I should not send you back, right this moment.”

Steve took a breath, and then another. He looked up. “Because I’ll find another way back.” He smiled, and it felt it in his teeth. “And it might be even stupider.”

Strange’s eyes closed. “I do not know if you were born under a particularly blessed star, or a particularly cursed one,” he said.

Steve’s chin dipped in a nod. “Well, there’s a lot of stars up there,” he said. “Might’ve been both.”

“It just might have,” Strange agreed. With a heartfelt sigh, he lowered himself down to sit next to Steve, bracing his elbows on his knees and dropping his head into his hands. For a long moment, he just sat there, his shoulders rising and falling as he breathed. When he finally raised his head, he was pale, his dark hair flopping over his forehead more disordered than Steve had ever seen him. “You realize you may have trapped yourself here, as well, don’t you?”

Steve nodded. “Yes.”

“You knew that when you followed me?” Steve nodded again, and Strange’s breath huffed out in an aborted, sharp bark of laughter. “Then you’re a fool.”

“Or a man who trusts you to figure out what’s happening, and fix it,” Steve said.

Strange waved him off, his mouth a tight, thin line. “As I said, a fool.”

“Also not the first time I’ve heard that,” Steve said. He rubbed his hands against his legs, trying to get feeling back into his fingertips. “I don’t think I will be, though. And you don’t, either, do you?”

Strange rubbed his eyes. “No,” he said, the word clipped. “Whatever this is, it centers on DJ. There’s no reason to suspect anyone else would be affected, but I’d prefer not to take that risk. You’ll be going back.”

Steve nodded. “You can’t, can you?”

Strange looked at him. “Can’t… What?” he asked, in a tone that made it clear that he wasn’t interested in continuing the conversation. 

Steve stood up. “You can’t send me back. At least, not right now.”

Strange pushed himself to his feet, with slow deliberation. Drawing himself to his full height, he met Steve’s eyes straight on. “Believe me, Captain,” he said, and there was a chill underlying the words, undercut by a sudden, violent sweep of wind, “While it takes a great deal of energy to move a dead weight such as yourself across dimensional barriers, I have reserves that you cannot imagine.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Steve said. “But I also don’t think you want to use them. Not on me.” 

Strange’s chin came up, his mouth going tight. “You are only making this more difficult, and you-”

“If you could’ve pushed me back instead of pulling me through, you would’ve,” Steve said, cutting him off. “You’re pushing your limits, and I know it, because I’ve done it.” Strange’s eyes flared, and Steve held up his hands. “I can't stop you from tossing me back, not now, not tomorrow.”

That won him a tight smile. “No. You can’t.”

“But let me see DJ first.” Steve’s throat worked. “He’s- Let me see him.”

“Do you think that will help? In all honesty?” Strange shot back. “To see you, to know you’re here, then to see you leave? Do you think that having to face that only he is trapped, is that beneficial to him? To watch yet another person head back home and leave him? Be forced away from him?”

All of the strain went out of Steve’s shoulders. “Yes.” Strange threw his hands in the air, frustration written across his face and Steve repeated, “Yes. Yes, I think that is- That’s what he needs, Stephen. He has to know we’re always going to come for him.”

He shook his head. “He has to know that. That even if we can’t bring him home, we’ll keep coming to him. We’ll… Find him. No matter what.”

Strange clamped a hand over his mouth, words muffled behind his fingers, words that Steve were pretty sure he wouldn’t have understood even without that barrier. Finally, Strange let his hand fall. He took a deep breath. “You will do exactly as you are told,” he said. “As long as you are here, a stranger in a strange land, as long as I am responsible for your well-being, then you will do what you are told.”

Steve’s mouth opened. Strange waited, his eyebrows arched. Steve sighed. “I’ll try.”

“And sadly, I know that’s the best I’ll get, when it comes to you,” Strange said. He pointed at the bench, his other hand tracing an arcane set of symbols through the air. “Sit.”

Steve took a seat, hoping that he didn’t look as exhausted as he felt. “What are you-”

“Making sure that you’re the only fool I have to deal with today,” Strange said, finishing with a flourish. For an instant, the symbol hung in the air, a gleaming, glittering construction of light, spinning in place. 

In a rush, it expanded, folding out into a swirling portal, and Clea stepped through, her head bent over a scroll of paper. “Is this important, darling?” she asked, walking the paper upwards with careful fingers. She frowned down at something on the page, her mouth pursing up tight. “I think I may have found something of use, it’s just-”

Strange cleared his throat, and she looked up. His head tipped in Steve’s direction. She followed the gesture, those remarkable eyes locking on his. “Hello,” Steve said.

Clea looked back at Strange. “Is that the Captain?” she asked, gesturing in Steve’s direction.

Strange considered Steve. “It is, yes.”

She looked back at Steve. Back to Strange. “Which one?”

“The one that does not belong here,” Strange said with a faint smile. 

Clea held her hand out to the side, and the scroll rolled itself up to float over her palm. “Why in the name of the seven hosts would you bring someone else from our dimension here?”

“I didn’t bring him,” Strange said, reaching for the scroll. She swept it out of his reach. “He jumped into the portal after me.”

Clea looked at Steve. He shrugged. “Well,” she said. “That was monumentally stupid.”

“I hear that a lot, ma’am,” Steve said, almost apologetic.

She hummed under her breath, a dangerous trill of sound. She looked at Strange. “Am I taking him home?” she asked.

“No. If you would, please, I’d like you to go back and reassure the rest of his family that he made the trip safely, and that after we’ve seen DJ-” He looked at Steve. “We’ll figure out what’s going to happen.”

Clea’s eyes widened. “He didn’t-” Strange shook his head. She looked at Steve. “You didn’t-” He shook his head. She smacked him on top of the head with the scroll. Turning back to Strange, she let loose with a wave of words in a language that Steve didn’t understand.

Judging by the look on Strange’s face, he was better off for it.

“Trust me, my darling, I know that-” Strange tried, and that was as far as he got before Clea swept a hand through the air, stepping into the gesture, and in an instant, she was gone. Above them, the trees shuddered, leaves clattering against each other, despite the lack of a breeze.

“I take it that went well,” Steve said at last.

Strange swept a leaf away from his shoulder with a flick of his fingers. “You are both still here, and still in possession of all of your limbs, and all of your sense.” He gave Steve a look that could’ve flash frozen fire. “Trust me, Captain. That is the best that it could’ve gone.”

Steve nodded. “Doctor? There was no way I wasn’t going to catch hell for this. I knew that the moment I walked through that portal.”

“And yet, you may not quite understand the scope of the hell you’ve unleashed,” Strange said. “Let’s go.”

*

“What happened?”

Tony paused, his cup halfway to his mouth, his other hand hanging limply at his side. He looked down, at the shattered remains of the armor that was scattered across the floor. He opened his fingers, letting the heavy wrench slide free. It crashed down, bouncing off a chunk of a shoulder plate with a sad, metallic clang. “Huh,” Tony said, taking a sip of his drink. “Sounds like a bell from this side, too.”

Natasha didn’t move from the workshop doorway, one hand braced on the frame, her face set. “What happened?” she repeated.

Tony wandered across the workshop, kicking chunks of armor out of the way with a vicious sweep of his foot. A gauntlet slammed into the metal cabinet, and he was pretty sure it left a dent. It also might’ve broken his foot. Not that he cared much. The physical pain muted a lot of other things in his head, and he was grateful for it. He lowered himself into a chair, slumping low in the seat. “I gave up,” he said, saluting her with the cup. And with a broad smile, he took a deep drink.

Unlike him, Natasha picked her way across the workshop with perfect grace, her feet somehow missing every fragment of metal and chunk of fractured circuitry. She didn’t even look where she was going, her attention focused instead on the open cabinet door just to his right. An overturned bottle hung halfway off the shelf, and half a dozen others were stacked on the counter underneath it. One bottle lay on its side next to the sink, its cap gone, its contents drained. “And what’re we drinking?”

Tony looked at her over the rim of his silver smoothie cup, his eyebrows arched. After a long sip, he raised the cup in a mock salute. “Smoothie.”

She paused, one hand resting on the counter just in front of the overturned bottle. “Really,” she said. She picked it up by the neck, tipping the label towards the light. “I could use one.” Her eyes came up to meet his. “What’s in it?”

Tony looked down into the cup. “A lot of things,” he said, taking another sip. 

Natasha held up the open bottle. “But mostly tequila.”

“But mostly tequila,” Tony agreed with a grin. He drained the cup and tossed it over his shoulder. “Like I said.” He stood, ignoring the way the world shifted under him. “I gave up.”

“I see that.” Gently, Natasha put the bottle down. “Jarvis-”

“Yes, Jarvis,” Tony said, his head tipping upwards. He stumbled back a step, back thudding against the workbench. He grabbed for it, his fingers scraping across the smooth surface. “Who else have you invited to this little party of ours?”

“Everyone,” Jarvis said, without a single sign of regret, and if there had been something in reach, Tony would’ve thrown it in the direction of the nearest camera.

“Fuck you,” Tony said instead, with a wide, brilliant smile.

“Don’t worry, I’m the only one who RSVPd,” Natasha said. She picked up a bottle of brandy, snapping the lid free with a twist of her wrist. “Thor’s still in Asgard, pleading our case, and Clint’s downstairs keeping Bruce as calm as possible.” She upended the bottle, dumping the liquor into the sink. “Since, as you know, the Other Guy is already on edge with DJ being missing. He’ll be in a bad mood if he does show up, and I think we have had our fill of that.”

“Wonderful,” Tony said. “He can sort out Jarvis’ servers.”

Natasha’s eyes cut in his direction. “That’s not fair.”

“Neither is life,” Tony mused.

“At least someone told us what was happening, because you clearly weren’t interested,” Natasha said. “Or at least, you were less interested in talking to us than you were in smashing things. And getting smashed.”

“He does like to gossip.” She dropped the bottle and reached for another. Tony watched her, amused. “Do you have any idea how much that bottle cost?” he asked as she emptied it.

“No, but I’m sure you can afford to replace it, even though you probably shouldn’t.”

He laughed, and it was sharp and ugly. “Who needs to buy another one?” he asked, pushing himself upright. “I’ve got plenty more. I’ve got-”

She didn’t look at him, just shook the last drops free of the bottle. “You shouldn’t.”

Rage swept over him, hot and hard and shredding him from the inside out. “You know what?” he said, his voice low and vicious. “I don’t get drunk in front of my kid, because he’s seen me drunk too often already. And I don’t get drunk in front of Rogers, because the fucking guilt trip is worse than the hangover. But you know what?”

He slapped his hands down on the workbench, hard enough to hurt. “They’re both gone.” A bubble of laughter caught in his throat, and for an instant, he was afraid he was going to throw up. He swallowed hard. “They’re both-” He rocked back, his eyes burning. “I don’t fucking care. I don’t WANT to fucking care. So do your worst, toss it all, I’ve got stashes you don’t even know about.”

His head turned, and for an instant, he was lost, he was adrift, his weight shifting on legs that didn’t want to support him any longer. His eyes closed. “You’re not my ex,” he said, his voice aching. “You’re not my mother, or my assistant, you’re not-” He forced his head up. “You’re not ANYTHING. So get out.”

She watched him, her face unreadable. Tony made a horrible, frustrated sound, half growl, half scream. “Just- Just GET OUT.”

The words echoed through the workshop, vibrating against his eardrums. Natasha set the bottle down in the sink. “No.” 

Tony nodded. “Fine. Stay. See if I care,” he said. “You’ll be gone soon enough. Story of my life. Everyone leaves. Everyone...” He rocked back, his shoulders shaking with muted laughter. He was almost certain it was laughter. “Fuck. Gone. Gone.”

She paused. “Tony-”

“They’re both safe.”

It was kind of gratifying to see Natasha caught just as flatfooted as he was for once.

She moved in one swift, fluid motion, her hand snapping out to snag the neck of the nearest bottle, and pivoting to meet the threat. The pale spot in the corner of Tony’s eye solidified, seeming to fade into existence, until Clea was standing there, on the business end of Natasha’s bottle. She looked down at the glass, and then up at Natasha. “The Captain made it through,” she said, the cloud of her pale silver hair floating into place, settling like a bank of fog against her shoulders. Her eyes met Tony’s. “He is safe with Stephen.”

Tony heard himself breathe. Breathing like he’d been running. Like his pulse was still accelerating, out of control. “Bravo for him,” he said, the words tasting like copper in his mouth. “Where is he now?”

“With Stephen.” Natasha let the bottle fall back to her side, and Clea offered her a slight smile. “He was-”

“I don’t care.”

It was so obviously a lie that he regretted saying it, almost before it left his mouth. He swallowed, and turned to the cabinets. The world swayed around him, waves catching him broadside. He ignored that, too. “Fine. So he’s there.” He tossed the cabinet door open, and then another. There had to be something else here, there had to be. He wished he could think straight. “Is he trapped?”

“In a manner of speaking,” Clea said. He heard her walk around the workbench. “Stephen, for all his pride, is mortal. And this is taking a toll on him.” There was a scrape of metal against stone, and Tony did not turn around. “He knows better than to burn the last of his strength out of spite. DJ might need more from him than your Captain does.”

His Captain. He smiled, and there was no humor in it. At least Steve had made the right choice, when it came down to it. When he came down to it, Steve always made the right choice. “Yeah, that mortal thing, annoying,” Tony agreed. He kicked a cabinet shut. “So why didn’t you put him back where he belongs?” He swept a tablet off of the workbench, savoring the way it smashed against the ground. “Or is it too-”

He turned, and rage swept over him, hard and fast.

Clea was reassembling the armor, the pieces floating in midair in front of her, her face as focused as if she was a child with a particularly clever jigsaw puzzle. She raised one hand, a pale glow swirling around her fingertips as she rotated a gauntlet back into place.

“Put. It. Back.”

The words were bitten off with cold intent, his teeth snapping against each other with each syllable. Clea paused, her hands still holding the armor captive in midair. Her head tipped to the side. “On the floor?” she asked, and Tony lost it.

“Yes,” he gritted out. “On the floor. Where you found it. Before you chose to start meddling in things that aren’t yours, that aren’t any of your business, and it’s not none of this is, but you think you have the right to play aroudn with it, with our things, with our lives, you just want to revel in it, to fix it, to fuck it up, because you have this power, this power no one else has, and fuck that, fuck it all.

“Magic. Fucking-” His mouth worked, desperate to spit out the words that clogged his throat. “Magic. Always magic, this thing that you do, incomprehensible, nonsensical, it’s just-” He pressed a hand to his head, which was throbbing now. “I’d ban you all, I just want it gone, I want it OUT. Get out of my tower, get out of my LIFE, just get OUT.”

He rocked forward, and his knees went out from under him. He could see the floor looming large in front of him, rushing up to meet him. But Natasha got there before the floor did, her arm going across his chest, holding him upright. He resented it. And he resented it even more that he needed it.

Tony looked up, and Clea was there, in front of him, her face unreadable. “If you’re not here to bring them both back,” he said, his chest aching, “then go.”

She nodded. “They’re safe,” she said. “And as soon as we can, we will.” Her hand fell back to her side, and the armor fell with it, clattering back to the floor. “I swear it.”

Tony nodded back, acknowledging that, even if he didn’t believe it. “Get out.”

And she was gone.

Natasha took a deep breath. “Well, you’re batting a thousand,” she said, and he wanted to argue, but didn’t see the point.

Tony’s head fell forward. “I’m fine,” he said, and Natasha snorted. Despite himself, he smiled. “Yeah, well, fuck you, too.”

“Sit down before you fall down,” she said, shoving him towards one of the chairs. He went, too tired, too broken to care. “You know, one of these days, you’re going to figure out that deliberately alienating the people who are trying to help you, who are capable of helping you, is not the best move.”

Tony settled into the chair, his back braced against the cabinets. He let his head fall backwards. “She didn’t help.”

“She came to tell you that neither of them was dead, and I don’t know about you, but I needed to hear that,” Natasha said. “This isn’t just about you.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Do you know why you don’t drink when you’re around Steve and DJ?”

“Because it’s more fun to drink alone?” he asked, rubbing his knuckles. He’d split the skin there at some point, and every sweep of his thumb pushed the blood across his skin.

“You like to drink alone,” she said, pulling his hand away, “because then you can tell yourself that you’re the only one you’re hurting.”

He ignored the way his stomach turned over. “Right.” He reached for a rag. “Is this the part of the morality tale where I have to admit that by hurting myself, I’m hurting them too?”

Gentle fingers cupped his chin, tipping his head up. Natasha smiled, just a little. “No. This is the part of the story where you have to admit that hurting yourself is enough. That’s enough of a reason to stop. You’re enough. You-” He tried to pull away, and her fingers tightened, just a tiny bit. “That’s why you hate drinking in front of them, because they believe you’re enough. They know you are. And guess what else?” 

She straightened up. “So do I. So cut this shit out, Stark.”

Tony looked up at her. “I’d hug you, but you probably have at least six knives on you right now, and I’m not taking that fucking chance.”

Natasha took the rag away from him and ran it under the tap, wringing it out with ruthless efficiency. “What if I promise not to stab you?”

He let her dab at his bleeding knuckles. “I dunno. You lie. You lie a LOT.”

She bent her head forward, not quite fast enough to hide her smile. ‘What if I promise to restrict my stabbings to non-fatal areas?”

“I don’t want to bring up the lying again-” Tony started, and she reached out, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. When she pulled him in, he went without protest, aching down to his bones.

“This is unacceptable,” Tony mumbled against her shoulder. “I’m reporting you to HR. All the reports.” He paused. “Do we have an HR department?”

 

“It’s Phil,” Natasha said, rubbing a hand up and down his back.

“Well, fuck that, then, he’ll staple my complaint form to my forehead,” Tony said, and he knew she was laughing. He closed his eyes, trying to ignore how they burned. “Romanov?”

“Stark?”

He swallowed. “They’re gone.”

Her hand paused. Then it swept up his back again. “I know.” She straightened up, and Tony let her go. “We’ll get them back. Both of them.”

“Thanks,” he said, and she met his eyes, one eyebrow arched in question. He gestured between them, awkward and stuttering. “I know that- That sort of thing isn’t your-” He stopped. “Sorry.”

“And I didn’t even stab you,” she said with a smile. She reached for the blender. “Come on. You’ve got work to do, and it’s work better done while sober.”

Tony nodded. “Right. Right.” He pushed himself to his feet. “Nat?” She looked at him, the blender cup in one hand. He nodded. “I might have to throw up.”

“Right. Bathroom.”

*

“I don’t know what I expected,” Clint said, “but it sure wasn’t this.”

“Really? Because this is exactly what I was expecting.” Harris sidestepped around a gaggle of Gandalfs, doing his best not to take a staff to the head. The aisles were narrow and cramped, with the booths pressing in on the limited walking space on both sides. He glanced over his shoulder at a booth selling an array of miniature plush dragons. On his other side, metal racks of autographed pictures loomed over him, grinning headshots fighting for space with film stills and cast photos. They’d passed vendors selling hand carved wands and felt hats, custom fit corsets and 3D printed props, first edition books and magic tricks, licensed costumes and hand stitched cloaks.

Clint was carrying a plush unicorn under one arm, a sausage shaped tube of plush with a goofy face and four stubby little legs. Harris had no idea where or when he’d acquired it. And he wasn’t sure he wanted to ask. “Do we even know what we’re looking for?”

Clint shrugged. “DJ said we’d know it when we saw it.”

Harris nodded. “Did he mean we’d know it when we saw it, or he’d know it when he saw it?”

“I’m not expecting much, to be honest.” Clint paused in front of an oversized booth packed from floor halfway to the ceiling with t-shirts. “Where’s Darcy?”

“I think we lost her back at the corset booth, and I’m as terrified by that sentence as anyone else on Earth,” Harris said. He picked up a t-shirt. He was pretty sure it was bootleg, and he was all right with that. “Does this count as a ‘souvenir’ situation? Are we bringing stuff back?”

“I mean, I am,” Clint said, balancing the unicorn on his head as he dug through the shirts. “But I live with a bunch of people who are in varying stages of a nervous breakdown.”

Harris stared at him. “And… A t-shirt helps?”

Clint shrugged again. “Does it hurt?” He held up a shirt emblazoned with the logo ‘Old Enough to Know Better, Still Young Enough to Do It.’ “What do you think?”

Harris opened his mouth. Closed it. “For… Who, exactly?” he asked carefully.

Clint looked down at it, and then back up. “Phil.”

“I don’t like to think about Phil in any sort of… Casual clothing,” Harris said. “It’s like seeing your third grade teacher buying margarita mix at the grocery store. It’s very disconcerting.”

“I mean, margarita mix isn’t a bad idea, either,” Clint said, just as Tony pushed past two men wearing black business suits and ornate fairy wings. As they passed, they left a cloud of glitter in their wake, which settled over Tony’s hair and shoulder.

Tony didn’t seem to notice. “Where’s DJ?”

Clint tossed the shirt back towards the table. “He was with you,” he said. “What-”

“He’s very fast.” Tony’s hands came up in front of him, his fingers flexing into fists before relaxing. “He’s… Very fast.”

“He won’t leave,” Harris said, even as he turned, looking back in the opposite direction. “He’s got to be here somewhere, the room isn’t that big.”

“It’s big enough,” Tony said, his voice dire.

“It’ll be-” The crowd parted, and at the far end of the aisle, Harris caught a glimpse of Darcy, waving a hand in their direction. There was a bag slung over her shoulder and a wand in her hand, and he caught himself grinning at her. She grinned back, and made a ‘come on,’ gesture before she disappeared around the corner. Harris wiggled between Tony and Clint. “Over there.”

“Over- Over where?” Tony asked, but without even looking back, Harris knew he was following. 

“Keep up, Stark,” he said, just because he could, and heard Clint choke on a laugh.

“I’m leaving both of you by the side of the road, I swear to God I am,” Tony grumbled. 

“Well, the hotel room’s in my name, so…” Harris wiggled his way past a display to find Darcy waiting for them on the other side. “Where’s DJ?”

“I introduced him to the lava lamp booth,” Darcy said, pointing. “Did you find anything?”

“No,” Tony said. “Because we have no idea what we’re actually looking for. We have-” He stopped next to DJ, who was watching a lava lamp bubble, the glass chamber held in the curving tail of a stone dragon. Tony studied it, his head tipped to the side. “I could improve that.”

DJ nodded, his expression rapt. “Yes.”

Clint clapped his hands, startling both of them. “Focus here, geniuses.” He leaned a hand on the table. “Deej. What are we looking for, here?”

DJ blinked at him, slow and careful. “The Gatekeeper,” he said.

“Right,” Clint said, drawing the word out. “Right.” He nodded. “And who or what is that?”

DJ shook his head. “There has to be access,” he said. “If someone forgets. Or doesn’t have a-” He made an aborted gesture, his hand snapping out and jerking back. “An invitation? Has to have a way in.”

Tony nodded. “The Gatekeeper.”

“The Gatekeeper,” DJ agreed. He turned away from the table with one last, lingering look at the lava lamps. “Weird.”

“The lamps, or the whole situation?” Clint asked him with an easy smile.

DJ reached out, petting Clint’s unicorn. “Everything,” he said, smiling back.

“So you’ve done this before?” Darcy asked, taking the unicorn away from both of them. Clint made a grab, and she ducked away, pressing a kiss to its fluffy muzzle. “Gone to the gathering of pointy headed weirdos?”

DJ shook his head. “No,” he said. “But Clea told me.”

“What happens if it’s different here?” Harris asked, and DJ flinched, a small twitch of his shoulders. Harris smiled at him. “I’m not trying to be-” He stopped, because DJ’s fingers were holding onto the hem of his shirt, his fingers pulling hard on the cloth. He glanced at Darcy, who shook her head.

“Let’s keep looking,” she said, letting Clint take his unicorn back. “I’m sure we’ll find it, soon enough, okay?”

DJ nodded, and without another word, he started up the aisle. This time, determined not to lose him, Harris fell into step behind him. He didn’t have to look back to know that Tony and Clint were talking in low tones, their heads bent together. For some reason, Harris didn’t want to hear what they were saying. He didn’t want to be adult about this. 

He just wanted to believe DJ knew what he was doing. 

“There.”

Harris was startled out of his reverie, just in time to keep from walking into DJ’s back. He followed DJ’s pointing finger, looking down the row ahead of them. There, tucked between a booth selling piles of plush and one piled high with bootleg DVDs, a man was sitting at a small table. Behind him, a crooked banner stood, reading “The Las Vegas Museum of Mysticism,” and the table was covered in disordered pamphlets. The man barely seemed to be aware of the people passing by, staring down at his phone with a bored expression on his face. 

Harris looked at DJ. “There?” DJ nodded, and Harris nodded back. “Right. There.”

“What’s there?” Tony asked, but DJ was already moving, ducking through the dwindling crowd. Harris, caught off guard, scrambled to follow him, almost bumping facefirst into a girl dressed as the white mage from Final Fantasy.

“Sorry,” he said, sidling sideways around her.

“I love your staff,” Darcy said to her, grabbing onto the back of Harris’ shirt, letting him tow her through the flow of the crowd. “What is he-”

“No idea,” Harris said, because DJ was already at the table, rocking his weight on the balls of his feet.

Slowly, the man behind the table looked up. His white eyebrows arched, a vaguely inquisitive expression. “Hi, kid?” It had the slight uptick at the end of a question. He reached out, nudging a pamphlet towards DJ. “Visit the museum. Worth your time.”

With that, he went back to his phone.

“Hey-” Tony started, but DJ just leaned forward.

“Houdini knew something we didn’t,” he said, the words coming out in a rush, and the man’s finger paused on the surface of his phone.

His eyes canted upwards, dark slits under lowered brows. There was something unreadable in his expression now, almost, but not quite hidden by the slight smile on his lips. “Yeah?” he asked, leaning back in his chair. “And what would that be?”

“The magic word.”

The man’s head dipped in a nod. “And what’s the magic word?”

DJ took a deep breath, his chest exposing with the force of it. Then he said something. Something… Wrong. Something discordant and sharp and brittle, and it wasn’t a word, it was barely a sound, but Harris flinched from it, his heartbeat accelerating sharply. Next to him, Darcy’s fingers latched onto his arm, her nails digging into his wrist. He glanced at her, and she was staring at DJ, her face pale. She didn’t seem to be aware that she was still holding on.

The man behind the table didn’t even blink. If anything, his face seemed to relax, smoothing out into a lopsided smile. “Huh. Well.” He cleared his throat. “That’s… Quite a magic word.”

He leaned over, dragging a satchel from under his chair. He dug through it for a moment, finally coming up with a stack of brightly colored paper. “Here. Five dollars off admission.” He peeled one of the coupons from the top of the stack and tucked it into a pamphlet, then held it out to DJ. “Check it out. Might be worth it.”

DJ blinked down at the pamphlet. After a long moment, he reached out, taking it from him. “Thank you.”

“Not a problem, kid.” And with that, the man went back to his phone.

DJ stood there, studying him, his face tight. And then he turned, walking down the rest of the row. Caught off guard again, Harris scrambled to catch up to him. “Deej?”

“Not right,” DJ mumbled, his fingers tight on the pamphlet. The paper crumbled under the force of his grip. “It’s-” He shook his head. “Not right. Not-”

Harris glanced at Darcy, who shrugged. “Hey, let’s take a moment,” she said, coming up next to DJ. “We’ll figure it out.”

“Maybe the password’s different here,” Clint said, ambling along behind them. He bounced the unicorn plush against his leg. “I mean, it could be? That wouldn’t be that weird. It’s a different universe, right?”

“It might make sense,” Darcy said, shifting her bag from one arm to the other. “Maybe each universe has a different one? To keep track of, you know, which universe you’re from?”

“Right, that’s a terrifying thought,” Tony said. He rubbed a hand over his face. “I don’t-”

DJ stopped. Held the pamphlet in front of him, and then opened it. “No. It was right. It was...” He pulled the coupon out and held it up to the light. Without looking up from his careful consideration, he held the pamphlet out to Tony, who took it. DJ brought the page up, sniffing at it.

“If you lick that,” Tony started, as DJ held it out in front of him.

“No. Something-” DJ’s face scrunched up. “There’s something hidden.” His thumb smoothed against the paper, wrinkling it. “Something-”

His eyes closed, and he took a deep breath. “It’s-” A spark flicked around his fingertips, a crackle of something almost like static electricity. “Lock. It’s a lock.”

Tony frowned. “What are you-”

DJ flipped the page around and slapped his hands together, catching the coupon between his palms.

It exploded.

Light pulsed outwards from DJ’s palms, washing over everything, knocking Harris back a step, and leaving a hint of sulfur and the lingering echo of thunder in its wake. It was like a firework had gone off in the middle of the convention, sharp and brilliant and gone as quickly as it had come.

Harris blinked, trying to clear his vision. “What the hell was-” A murmur of sound brought him up short, and he froze. “Right. Public.” All around them, heads were craning in their direction, vendors and attendees jostling to get a better view. 

“We’re in public,” Harris said, his voice strained. “That was-”

Darcy held up her wand. “Aisle six,” she announced, her voice loud enough to carry. “You just have to pay for the upgrade.”

There was a beat of silence, and then, as one, the crowd turned and hustled for the end of the row. Harris watched them go. “Are they going to-” he started, and Darcy grabbed his arm.

“To find the wand booth? Yes,” she said, dragging him in the other direction. “Let’s go.”

“You can’t just-” Harris said, as Clint grabbed his other arm.

“She absolutely can, and let’s not waste a good cover story,” Clint said, and Tony was right there with them, his hands on DJ’s shoulders, hustling him along ahead of him. Harris glanced over, and DJ was staring down at his hands, still pressed together like he’d been interrupted in the middle of a prayer. Smoke curled from between his fingers, like whatever was there was still burning, cradled in his palms.

Harris had no idea how long it took them to clear the convention, he saw the hall and the foyer of the hotel go by in a blur, and then they were outside, out on the sidewalk. “Car?” Clint asked, and Tony nodded.

“Car,” he gritted out, his head swinging in their direction. His eyes were sharp, his mouth pinched, and he was holding onto DJ like he was afraid someone was going to rip the kid out of his hands. “Where-”

“This way,” Clint said, and he looked at Harris. “You with us, there, buddy?”

Harris considered him. “No,” he admitted, and Clint grinned at him.

“Yeah, but you’re trying, good for you.” Clint looked back over his shoulder. “The staff did NOT look happy with us just now.”

“The staff probably thinks we just set off some sort of explosive device in the middle of their convention,” Darcy shot back as Clint lead the way to the parking garage. “And I don’t really blame them for thinking that, God, we are not going to be able to go back there, are we?”

“Yes, we will, we just need a disguise,” Clint said, cutting around a column. The car was waiting and he wrenched the back door open, tossing the unicorn into the trunk. “Everyone in.”

“It’s Vegas,” Harris snapped as Darcy shoved him into the back seat. “I think they’re prepared for a hoodie and a pair of glasses.”

Clint slid behind the wheel as the others climbed in. “Some of us are a little better at disguises than that,” he pointed out, jamming the keys into the ignition. “We can-”

“Just drive,” Tony snapped, yanking the passenger side door shut. He looked back over his shoulder. “DJ? What is it?”

DJ opened his hands. “Unlocked,” he said, holding up a piece of plastic, the size and shape of the con badge. He turned it over, letting the light play over the metallic surface. “VIP Pass.”

“Right,” Clint said, throwing the car in gear. “So we have to go back. We have to-”

Tony pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Jarvis, I’m going to need you to find us somewhere to sleep tonight. Somewhere much, much better than here.”

“Yes, sir,” Jarvis said. “Will you require anything further?”

“A disguise,” Darcy said, and Harris gave her a look. She shrugged. “What? We do.”

“Don’t worry,” Clint said, rolling the car forward. “I know just where to get that.”

*

“No.”

Clint frowned at him over the top of the plastic wrapper. “No?” he repeated. “Think I need a larger size?”

Tony gave the mylar bag a disdainful look. “No, I refuse to be seen with you if you’re wearing a cheap Halloween Iron Man costume.”

“Good thing this isn’t an Iron Man costume then,” Clint said, slapping the bag with one hand. “It’s a Metal Hero costume.” Tony gave him a look, and Clint grinned back, immune to both censure and common sense. “Legally distinct.”

“Right, and I’ll be buying a costume company and, I don’t know, lighting its inventory on fire,” Tony said. He scowled at the costume. It was a horrible shade of orange-red, with metallic gold ink stamped on in places. Neither the ink nor the seams seemed straight, and Tony had a sneaking suspicion that if the bag was opened, it would stink of plastic and chemical residue. “Why would you-”

“It comes with a mask!” Clint said. Tony took a deep breath, and before he could get a word out, Clint continued, “That’s a plus, right?.”

“In that no one will know you’re wearing that piece of trash?” Tony asked. “Yes. That’s a plus.” 

Clint had somehow known just where to find this costume shop, a dusty, extensive warehouse of a building packed from wall to wall and floor to ceiling with costumes in every shape and size. Cheap kids’ Halloween costumes were piled up in boxes next to ornate, theatrical costumes. Ball gowns tumbled over poorly organized racks next to bins of plastic swords and foam scythes for all your reaping needs. There were glass cases of sparkling costume jewelry and stacks of cardboard crowns painted in flaking gold paint. Thigh high platform boots of buttery soft leather sat heel to heel with cheap clown shoes and wooden sandals. 

Even for Vegas, it was an overwhelming mess.

Clint studied the plastic bag holding the costume. “It doesn’t come with a voice changer,” he said.

DJ was digging through the hooks of accessories behind them, his face a picture of concentration. “No gloves, either,” he said. “And I can’t find-”

“We can substitute some mittens or something,” Clint told him. He leaned back. “Darce, gloves?”

“I got opera gloves and like, fingerless lace gloves.” Darcy’s voice floated over the top of the display, and Tony had no idea what row she was in, but it wasn’t this one. “Or. And hear me out, here, I want you to seriously consider-”

Tony rubbed his forehead. “No,” he called, but Darcy slid into sight at the end of the row, holding a box over her head.

“GIANT FOAM CAT PAWS,” she said, in the tones of someone who’d discovered a holy relic, and Clint held out a hand.

“Give it here,” he said. “We’re going full on Iron Cat.”

“No,” Tony said to Darcy, who gave him a wide eyed look over the top of the box. He struggled against a smile. “No.”

“Can I get a tiara?” she asked.

“I’m not going to stop you,” Tony told her.

“Let me rephrase. Will you buy me a tiara?”

“Absolutely not,” Tony said, going back to his phone. His phone was his only lifeline at this point.

“I’ll buy you a tiara,” Clint said, taking the box from her. “Aw, they’re red, this is awesome.”

“Can I have a tiara?” DJ asked, considering two different bagged wigs.

“Yes, you can,” Darcy said. “How sparkly are we talking here?”

“So sparkly,” he said, and she nodded.

“All the sparkle.” She looked at the costume, now half tucked under Clint’s arm. “Ooooh, that’s… That’s ugly.”

“Yes. Yes, it is,” Clint said. He sounded pleased. He gestured with the box. “Did they have cat ears?” She gave him a look, and he nodded. “Of course they have cat ears.”

“I mean, want a tail? They have robotic ones that swing when you press a button, Harris is trying to figure out how they work, and-”

“He’s not wearing that,” Tony said. “He’s not wearing that, because despite what he wants all of us to think, he does actually have standards.”

Clint snorted. “Jesus, wow, no. I absolutely do not.” He balanced the box on the palm of one hand. “But if you don’t want me to wear this one-”

“I don’t,” Tony told him, kicking a feather boa away from his ankle. 

“There’s always the sexy varient.”

“Oh, God, yes,” Darcy said, at the same moment that Tony said, “No.”

Clint gave him a wide, bright grin. “Sexy Iron Hero!” He said, his hand moving slowly to another rack of costumes. “Short skirt. Big bow on the butt. Heart shaped hole where the arc reactor should be.” He traced a very large heart over the center of his chest. “Boot covers included.”

Tony gave him a look over the top of his phone. “I doubt they make it in your size.”

“We’re in Vegas, buddy, guys my size are probably their prime clientele for the sexy varient,” Clint said. He held up the Iron Hero bag, giving it a little shake. “Your choice. I”m pretty sure they’ve got five of these. Or I can just load up on Sexy Iron Scouts.”

“Gotta say, as much as I’m usually up for the sexy varient,” Darcy said, her hands on her hips, “As the only ‘lady varient’ of this group, I’m not willing to be ‘sexy Tony Stark.’ I’m not wearing a miniskirt. Someone else can take that bullet.”

“Harris,” Clint called.

“What?” Harris called back.

“Wanna wear a miniskirt version of the Iron Man armor?”

Harris’ head appeared at the end of the aisle. “How… Would that work? With the flying? And the-” He gestured at his chest. “Missiles?”

“Not well,” Tony said, scowling down at his phone. “Which is why, despite my occasional drunken engineering session, I’ve never gone with that hotpants option.”

Harrris looked down at his feet. “I don’t have the legs to pull off a miniskirt,” he said. “I could do a, you know, leggings? But seriously, knobby knees.”

“I can’t believe I’m involved in this conversation,” Tony said.

“Know who does have the legs for it?” Clint said, holding the costume in front of Tony, who pushed it away with one disdainful finger.

“Know who isn’t going to be photographed wearing a miniskirt in Vegas when his boyfriend is back in New York?” Tony asked. 

“Is it you?” Clint asked with a grin.

“It is absolutely me,” Tony said.

DJ raised a hand. “I can-”

 

“No,” everyone else said in unison.

DJ blinked. “I like skirts.”

“I like not having your father murder me when he inevitably shows up to find you in a plastic miniskirt,” Tony said, his voice dire. “So let’s just put that back, and Jarvis has found us a place to sleep, so anyone making bad decisions with Clint’s credit card, head to the register. I’ll meet you at the car.”

“So, we’re buying the Ironette costume, right?” Darcy asked Clint and Tony decided he didn’t want to be here any more.

The night air was crisp and cold, in a way that he’d only found in the desert. The strip mall the costume warehouse occupied was far enough from the center of the city that the lights were muted, the soft glow of the strip barely creeping into the sky. Tony leaned back against the building, trying to focus on his phone.

“All right?”

Tony looked up. DJ was hovering next to him on the sidewalk, his expression quizzical. Tony smiled at him. “Yeah, I’m fine,” he said. “Decided you didn’t want a tiara after all?”

DJ leaned against the wall next to him. “Darcy’s picking one out for me,” he said.

“That’s either really smart or really dumb,” Tony said, making DJ smile. He bounced his phone against his leg. “How’re you doing, kid?”

DJ thought about that, his mouth twisted to the side. “Tired,” he said.

Tony laughed. “Yeah. Yeah, I… Yeah.” He looked up at the sky, and felt his stomach shift. He went back to his phone. “As soon as the Tweedle Twins and Harris are done with their mischief, we’ll get you something to eat and a bed.”

DJ was fiddling with something in his pocket, his head down. “Are you okay?” he repeated, and Tony glanced at him.

“Yeah. I’m fine. Why do you ask?”

A slight shrug. “Don’t think my dad likes the desert,” he said, the words careful. His head came up. “Not anymore.”

Tony realized that his hand was resting over the arc reactor, and he pulled it away. “It’s just another place,” he said, trying for a smile. He looked up, and the sky was thick and heavy, pressing down on him like a blanket. “I’m a New York boy, that’s all. Being able to see this much of the horizon is… Unnatural.”

DJ smiled. “I… Think it’s more natural? Than the city?”

“That’s what they want you to think,” Tony told him. His phone beeped, a new incoming message from Jarvis. “Reservation’s all set.” He glanced at DJ. “Next time we see your Strange, you should, you know, write your parents a letter or something.”

DJ shifted his weight. “Don’t need to.”

Tony didn’t know how to say this, and he didn’t know why he was trying. “I’m sure they’re worried about you,” he pointed out. “I;m sure they’d-”

“I’m going home,” DJ said, his voice soft. “I’m getting help. But I’m going home.”

“I know you are, it’s just…” Tony’s voice trailed off as the door to the costume shop opened. Clint ducked out, a tiara on his head and arms full of bags, and Tony gave him a look.

Clint grinned. “Don’t worry. Darcy got you one, too.”

“Damn right I did,” Darcy said. She was wearing a tiny gold crown on a headband. She held out an ornate, glittery headpiece of silver and paste jewels to DJ. “Here you go, magpie, I got you the best one.”

DJ took it with a smile. “Thank,” he said, settling it on ihs head.

Harris’ crown was closer to a circlet, twisted silver wire and drop crystals. Before Tony could say anything, he hustled past, his head down. “Shut up.”

Tony grinned at his back. “You read a lot of Lord of the Rings growing up, didn’t you, Celeborn?”

“Aaaaaand that’s a name that only a fellow nerd would dredge up,” Harris said with a wide smile.

“I’m a Faramir girl, myself,” Darcy said. “I refuse to be seen with a man who has better hair than me.” She waited for Clint to walk around the SUV, one hand propped on her hip. “Anyone waiting to murder us?”

“If they are, they’re being careful about it,” Clint said. He opened the back door of the vehicle, waving her in. “Load it up, kids. Stark, where are we going?”

“Jarvis is sending the address to the GPS, want him to drive as well?” Tony asked, throwing open the back door of the SUV so that Clint could load it up.

“I mean, I would, but I’m stopping at In n’ Out on the way,” Clint said, tossing his bags on top of the rest of their luggage. “I want a burger.”

“I’d object, but…”

Clint slammed the door shut. “But you want a burger, too.”

“But I want a burger, too,” Tony said, heading for the driver’s side door.

Clint got there first, but he had to scramble, and Tony considered that a win. He continued around to the passenger side and slipped into the seat. “We all loaded up back there?” he asked, reaching for the seatbelt.

“Yes, dad,” Darcy sing-songed, and DJ, sitting in the middle, hid a smile behind his hands.

“Shut up, I’m still not sure why you’re here,” Tony said with a smile. “Who wants a burger? The carnie wants the cheapest food possible, and I’m too tired to argue with him.”

In the babble of words that followed, Tony met DJ’s eyes in the rearview mirror. DJ smiled, a game, struggling smile, but a smile nonetheless. Tony smiled back. “You okay?” he mouthed.

DJ wiggled into his seat, and nodded. “You?” he mouthed back.

“I want a burger,” Tony said aloud. “Cheeseburger. Everyone shut up.” He pointed at Clint. “You. Drive.” He let his head fall back against the headrest, his eyes sliding shut. “Wake me when we get there.”

He didn’t sleep; he never thought he would. But it was nice to close his eyes and shut down, not to have to see or hear or feel anything. To just let the vibrations of the car roll through him, and imagine the rumble of the tires were the repulsors. To slip into the place where his mind was busy and his body was at rest and that was the closest he could get to peace.

The bump of the tires as they turned into the parking lot brought his eyes open. “Well, that was-” he started, and Clint brought a finger up to his lips. His head jerked back, over his shoulder, and Tony turned in his seat to look.

DJ was asleep, his head resting on Darcy’s shoulder, his lips parted and his eyelashes casting shadows over his cheekbones. His chest tight, Tony studied him, trying not to see himself in DJ’s features. But it was there, and it hurt. 

Tony looked at Darcy. “Sorry,” he said, as quiet as he could, and she grinned at him.

“‘S okay,” she whispered back. “Harris has a lot of good qualities, but his shoulders are hella bony.” She smiled down at DJ. “He’s a polite kid, and he’s had a tough couple of days.”

“Yes, he has,” Tony said, as Clint pulled into the drive through.

DJ slept through them ordering, collecting the food, and driving to the hotel. Even as Clint drove them up to the front of the imposing, high end hotel, he didn’t stir. So when the doorman stepped forward to open Tony’s door, he waved him off.

“Stay in the car, I’ll get the key and we can take the elevator from the parking garage,” Tony said, slipping out of the car door and pushing it almost closed, reluctant to wake the kid. Clint leaned over in the driver’s seat, and Tony stabbed a finger in his direction. “You.” He waved his hand at the backseat. “Babysit.”

“Two of them are well past the age for needing-” Clint looked back at Darcy, who was grinning at him, pure chaos alight in her face, and he settled back into his seat. “I’ll wait here.”

Tony choked on a laugh and straightened up. “Damn right you will. Don’t eat my burgers”

“Make it fast, then,” Clint said, and Tony shut the door on him.

A moment later, he strode into the lobby, looking neither left nor right, heading straight for the concierge station. The woman stationed there looked up, a polite smile on her face until she realized just who was heading in her direction. In an instant, her posture changed, her chin coming up, her shoulders going back. “Good evening, Mr. Stark,” she said, her voice polished. She slid an expensive looking cream colored envelope across the counter to him. “Your suite is prepared. Your-” Her forehead wrinkled for just a moment. “Assistant indicated you would not be requiring the butler or in room serving staff. If we’d had a bit more warning, we would’ve assigned someone to-”

“That won’t be necessary.” Tony picked up the envelope, catching a glimpse of her understated name tag. “Monique, is it?”

“Yes, sir.”

Tony pulled his phone out of his pocket, pulling up the file he’d been working on with a flick of his finger. “Are you good at your job, Monique?”

Her lips twitched. “Extremely”

He grinned. “Good answer.” He pulled up the email that Jarvis had forwarded to him, finding the concierge contact information. “I’m sending you a file. I need the items in it by eight am tomorrow morning. If you can manage it, not only will your gratuity be immense, I’ll make sure anyone you have to call in to help you will be similarly compensated.”

Her face went blank for an instant, and Tony smiled. “Don’t worry. Nothing illegal, immoral or distasteful. Unless, of course, you have opinions on coffee?”

One eyebrow arched. “Doesn’t everyone?” One hand tapped on the keyboard of her computer, kept discreetly out of sight. The other eyebrow arched. “Ah.” She scrolled through the list, and Tony waited, amused despite himself. “I…” She paused. “How… Dirty are you looking for?”

“As filthy as possible,” Tony said. He slipped his phone back into his pocket. “Eight am?”

“Of course, Mr. Stark. Eight am.” She turned her attention back to him. “Is there anything else I can do for you tonight?”

“No, thank you.” He turned, giving her a quick wave over his shoulder. “I’ll leave you to figure out exactly why I need all of that. Have a good night.”

“Have a good night, Mr. Stark,” she replied, and even though he couldn’t see it, he could hear the smile in her voice.

Smiling to himself, he headed back across the lobby towards the doors. Outside the frosted glass, he could see the car still waiting at the curb, and his footsteps accelerated.

Halfway to the doors, something caught his attention out of the corner of his eye. His head swung around catching the glimpse of an elderly lady with a crown of white hair perched on one of the couches that were scattered around the lobby. She was wearing a black pant suit, the lines clean and austere. Her hands, folded in her lap, looked skeletal against the fabric, and her head swung slowly, her dark eyes tracking Tony as he moved across the lobby.

He slowed, something prickling the skin on the back of his neck. She smiled, just a little, and Tony took one more step, a pillar coming between them and breaking their eye contact.

One more step, then two, and Tony stopped, confusion sweeping over him. He turned back, his eyes darting over the lobby. There were a few members of the staff behind the desk, and a doorman at the door, holding it open for a group of drunken revelers. A tall, dark skinned man was seated in a chair, having an intense conversation on his phone. A couple dressed in evening clothes were at the front desk, arm in arm, pressed closed together. A woman in a cocktail dress waited, her attention on the elevators.

Other than that, the lobby was deserted.

Tony gave his head a shake. “Been a long day,” he muttered.

“I’m sorry, sir?” the doorman asked, pushing it open for him.

“Long night, am I right?” Tony asked, and the man smiled at him.

“It’s Vegas, sir. They’re all long.”

Laughing, Tony slipped past him. “Yes. Yes, they are.”


	6. Chapter 6

“Did I order all of this?”

The room service waiter smiled, just a little, as he rolled the first of the two oversized food carts into place next to the table. “I just deliver it, sir, but I wouldn’t be concerned.” He held out an envelope to Tony with one gloved hand. “Compliments of the house.”

Tony took the envelope, tapping it against the palm of his other hand. “As long as there’s coffee,” he said, stepping out of the way, “it’s a gift I’ll gladly accept.”

“Fresh, hot, and as strong as we can make it,” the young man said cheerfully, reaching for a cup and a gleaming silver carafe. He poured a cup off coffee with practiced ease, and held it out to Tony. “Las Vegas knows two things, Mr. Stark: Good times, and hangovers.”

Tony took it with a laugh. “Always pleased to meet an expert,” he said, stepping out of the way so that the young man could start unloading his cart. His coworker was already at work, setting the table with plates, cups and gleaming silverware before setting out carafes of milk and juice.

Tony stood back and watched as the two of them rapidly filled the table with covered platters and bowls, moving with practiced speed and precision. Once everything was in place, they stepped back, pushing the carts toward the door. Tony handed them each a folded bill as they moved past him. “Thank you,” he said, with a nod, and the waiter paused.

“Monique would like to know if the delivery this morning was acceptable, Mr. Stark?”

“She’s a miracle worker,” Tony said, peeking under one domed lid. The steam that wafted up carried the scent of fried onions and seared peppers. His stomach grumbled, and he put it back down.

“That she is.” The young man tucked the bill into his pocket. “Is there anything else we can do for you, Mr. Stark?”

“Leave me to make very poor choices with this,” Tony said, making the man laugh. “Thank you. That’s all for now.”

“Thank you, Mr. Stark.”

Once they were gone, the door shut securely behind them, Tony returned to the main room of the suite. Even for Vegas, it was large, with a dozen or more rooms; he hadn’t spent much time exploring last night. He’d found DJ a bedroom, found himself a bedroom, and had assumed everyone else could take care of themselves.

In the warm light of morning, he found the expansive main room of the suite was large enough to host a party or meeting, with huge windows that looked out over the strip. There were small, intimate clusters of seating and large, expansive couches clustered around low, glass topped coffee tables. There was a grand piano, topped with a beautiful arrangement of roses and lilies. There was a bar, its shelves filled with gleaming rows of bottles and glassware and fronted by a row of gleaming stools.

And there was a dining room table large enough to seat a party or ten or more, which was now covered with far too much breakfast for just him.

“If I’m up, everyone has to be up,” he yelled at the closed bedroom doors, lifting the cover off of one of the room service platters. Waffles. He dropped it back down with a clatter, refilling his cup from the silver pot with his other hand. “Children, it can’t take you this long to get dressed. Let’s get a move on.”

A beat of silence, and then one of the doors opened. Clint leaned out, his hair standing on end, his eyes narrowed into blurry slits. “What time is it?” he asked.

Tony glanced in his direction, and regretted it. “You couldn’t even manage pants?” he asked, finding the bacon at last. He plucked a perfectly crisp piece from the top of the pile, and waved it in Clint’s direction. “I mean. You couldn’t manage pants.”

Clint yawned, his face scrunching up with the force of it. “Fuck you,” he said, rubbing a hand through his hair. “And anyway-” He stopped, and looked down at his boxers. His toes wiggled against the carpet. He looked up. “Fuck you,” he repeated at last.

“A compelling argument,” Tony said, amused. He tucked the piece of bacon into his mouth like a cigar and reached for the silver bowl of fruit salad. “Want to know a better one? Pants.”

“Fuck you,” Clint said, and shut the door with a bang.

“Put on your trash costume!” Tony yelled, spooning fruit onto his plate. He paused, then dropped a croissant onto the top of the fruit. Fuck it. He deserved it. Also more bacon. 

He tossed a piece of melon into the air and caught it in his mouth, then chased it with a piece of bacon. “DJ! Lewis! I gave you your costumes an hour ago, how long-”

“Here.”

Tony twisted around in his chair, his coffee cup halfway to his mouth, and froze, his stomach icing over in the space of a single breath..

DJ stood just outside his bedroom door, clad in a wrinkled gray t-shirt emblazoned with the MIT logo and an unzipped red hoodie that fell awkwardly around his shoulders and hips. He shifted his weight, working his feet deeper into his sneakers, and shifted his backpack a little higher on his back. One hand wrapped around the strap, the other held a reusable Dunkin Donuts travel cup.

Tony leaned back in his chair, taking a moment to steady himself. “Yeah,” he managed, and his voice wasn’t shaking, he could convince himself of that. “Right. You-” He nodded. “Well, that’s freshman me, right there.” He reached for the coffee pot, because that was a lifeline that he could understand, and it was a hell of a lot safer than most of his lifelines. “Promise me something, kid. Stay out of the frat parties.”

DJ set his backpack down next to a chair, lowering himself down into it. “Not good at parties,” he said, his fingers gripping the seat on either side of his legs. 

“Neither was I. That’s why I drank,” Tony said, saluting him with the coffee cup. He reached for DJ’s Dunkies cup, and stopped halfway there. He looked at DJ. “Do you... Drink coffee?”

DJ shook his head. “Not… A good idea.”

“Right,” Tony said. He grabbed the carafe of orange juice and filled the cup with that, instead. “Eat something. There’s eggs and, I don’t know, sausage?” DJ took the cup from him with a murmured ‘thank you,’ and Tony lifted the lid on the nearest platter. “Waffles?”

DJ’s face lit up, and he reached for a plate. “Everyone else?”

“Clint’s probably fallen asleep in the shower,” Tony said, serving himself an egg white omelet with spinach and mushrooms. He forked up a bite and considered it for a moment before he popped it in his mouth. “Lewis is still getting dressed. Harris is getting fitted.”

DJ paused in the act of dumping half a pitcher of syrup on his waffles. “Fitted?”

Tony checked his watch. “Yeah, he should be back soon, I told them I needed him by nine, and-” There was a rattle from the front door, and Tony grinned into his coffee. “Staff here is very prompt.”

“I hate you,” Harris announced from the front entryway, slamming the door behind him. “I- I want to make that clear, I hate you.”

“Shouldn’t hate things,” DJ said, around a mouthful of potatoes. 

“Any good?” Tony asked him, and DJ nodded. “What happens in Vegas is carbs, I suppose.” Tony took the bowl from him, dumping a healthy portion of fried potatoes, onions and peppers onto his plate. He’d get to the fruit salad right after he finished them. And also some more bacon. He glanced over his shoulder. “How’d it go, champ?”

Harris stalked into the suite, and Tony grinned. “For off the rack? They did a good job.” He picked up a platter. “Want a waffle?”

Harris spread his hands wide. His well-tailored black suit jacket shifted easily with the movement, hugging the lines of his body without pulling as his shoulders rose. “Does it look like I want a waffle?” he asked.

Tony’s head tipped to the side as he thought that over. “It’s a very nice suit,” he said with a grin. And it was. It was a classic cut, nothing too modern or flashy, but a with nice, clean lines and an elegant weight. Paired with a crisp silk shirt and a red and gold tie that just brushed up against the edge of garish, it suited Harris in a way that Tony was pretty sure Harris wouldn’t like.

“We’ll get you better shoes, and the cufflinks-” Tony started, and Harris gripped the back of a chair, leaning forward.

“I saw the pricetag on these shoes,” he said, his voice dire.

Tony’s eyebrows arched. “And… You approved?” he asked. Harris’ mouth went tight, and Tony held up a plate. “Bacon?”

“The urge to slap that out of your hand is almost overwhelming,” Harris said.

“And yet, you’re resisting because you can’t bear to make a mess that the housekeeping staff would have to clean up, or to waste food,” Tony told him. DJ, who had been digging through the platters, moved a few closer to him, well out of Harris’ reach.

“I really hate you,” Harris said. “And all of this is going back.”

“They’re not going to take it back,” Tony said, taking a piece of bacon for himself. As soon as he selected it, Harris snatched it out of his hand. Unconcerned, Tony picked up another one. “It’s been altered, Harris. They’ll still charge me, and then they’ll, I don’t know.” He waved the bacon through the air like a baton. “Probably throw it away.” He saw Harris flinch, and struggled to keep a straight face. “But that’s fine. Maybe it’ll go to GoodWill or something, and someone who happens to be your exact height and weight will-”

“You dragged me out of bed at six am-”

“I did not, I just told you there was an emergency, and you dragged yourself out of bed,” Tony pointed out. “With flattering speed, might I add.”

“And it turns out that your ‘emergency’ is a bunch of tailors, and no one was interested in listening to me when I told them that I didn’t need a suit and didn’t want a suit and this is-” He gestured at Tony with the bacon. “What is this?”

Tony gave him a critical look. “Your costume. I mean, as soon as we get you some sunglasses and handcuff a briefcase to you, or, you know what, I’ve got one of the suitcase suits, that’ll-”

“How are you this much of a pain in my ass?” Harris asked. “I really-”

“Hate me,” Tony finished for him with a grin. He took a sip of his coffee, his eyebrows arching. “Sit down, champ. You’re going to feel a lot more charitable towards me in a few minutes.”

Harris frowned, suspicion flickering across his features. “What are you-”

Tony kicked a chair away from the table. “Sit down. Before you fall down.” He turned in his chair, bracing an arm on the back. “ Lewis! Breakfast’s getting cold!”

“Look, there are wardrobe malfunctions here, give me a sec!” she called back.

Harris looked at the door. Looked at Tony. “What did you do.”

Tony grinned at him over the rim of his cup. “Sit. Down.”

“Well?”

Everyone looked up as Darcy stepped out of the bedroom door. “Uh,” Harris said.

Darcy grinned. “What do you think? I think I like it.”

“Uh,” Harris repeated, and Tony grinned.

Darcy was wearing a pair of grey coveralls, folded down at the hips, with the arms tied around her waist. A faded Black Sabbath t-shirt clung to the curves of her breasts, and a pair of welding goggles were pushed back on her forehead, holding her bangs away from her face. The rest of her hair was twisted up in a loose knot at the crown of her head, held in place with two pencils. Smears of ‘grease’ had been artistically applied to her jawline and neck, and across her left shoulder. The outfit was finished with a pair of steel toed work boots.

Darcy propped her hands on her hips with a grin, her chin up and her shoulders back. It was a pose that did good things for her figure. “What do you think?”

Tony arched an eyebrow. “Didn’t that shirt have sleeves when I gave it to you?”

“Yeah, but let’s be honest.” Her hands, clad in a pair of battered leather work gloves, went to fists, and she flexed, her arms over her head in the classic bodybuilder pose. “Be a shame to cover up these guns.”

Harris made a pained sound, and Tony reached out, catching his belt, and shoving him towards the chair. He dropped like a stone. “It certainly would,” Tony said to Darcy, who was poking at the front of her shirt. The fake arc reactor they’d found at the costume shop was visible through the fabric. “Stop fussing with it.”

“Think I should rip the neckline?” Darcy asked, tugging on it. “So it’s more-” 

“I think you should take your gloves off and have some breakfast,” Tony said, because Harris looked like he was going to have a stroke. “Monique bought those off of one of the maintenance crew.” He reached for an empty coffee cup. “You can have clean boots, but no one’d believe a welder with clean gloves.”

“Right. So. Do I get a torch?” she asked, her face lighting up.

“Dear God, no,” Tony said, filling her cup, and then his own, with coffee. “Are you kidding me? You don’t get matches.”

“Rude,” she said with a grin, taking the coffee from him. She reached for the sugar, fluttering eyelashes in Harris’ direction. “Look at you. That suit is something else.”

“Wasn’t my idea,” Harris grumbled, his cheeks pink.

“I know, because it actually fits,” Darcy said, holding out one fist towards Tony. He tapped his knuckles against hers with a smirk.

“Very funny,” Harris said, but he was smiling as he piled pancakes onto his plate. “So we have, what? Costumes representing different facets of your personality?”

“In a way.” Tony pointed his fork at DJ, and paused, his train of thought temporarily derailed. “What… What are you eating?”

DJ looked up at him from behind his plate, which was now a towering pile of whipped cream, chopped nuts, shaved chocolate, and swirls of caramel sauce. “Waffle,” he said, shaking powdered sugar onto the top.

“Right. I’m… Sure there’s a waffle under that somewhere,” Tony said, now a bit concerned. “Should you be eating that?”

“Yes,” DJ said. He moved the plate a little closer to himself, and away from Tony.

“Would your father let you eat that?”

“Yes,” DJ said, digging in with his fork. It disappeared almost all the way down to his fingertips.

Tony nodded. “Would Steve?”

DJ paused. His eyes slid to the side. “Yes,” he said, drawing the word out. Then he shoved a forkful of cream and sugar into his mouth, as if to stave off any other awkward questions.

“You should not lie, kid, you’re… You’re not good at it,” Tony said, amused despite himself. “But yeah, We have College Tony Stark, Business Tony Stark, and Mechanic Tony Stark.” Somehow, there was still fruit on his plate. Tony poked a piece of pineapple with one tine of his fork. Reluctantly, he stabbed it. “Now we just need-”

“Someone give me coffee or I’m going back to bed, I’ve slept in way worse than this,” Clint said, stumbling out of his bedroom. Tony looked over, checking to see if his eyes were open. The mostly weren’t, but that wasn’t slowing him down.

“Sorry, we’re all out,” Tony said, smirking at Clint over the rim of his coffee cup. “I guess you should’ve gotten up earlier. Next time-”

Clint moved so fast that Tony could barely track it. One second, he was propped up against the doorframe of the bedroom, the next, Tony’s hand was empty, and Clint was dropping into a chair, his face buried in the cup. He drained it in two long swallows, and then his head fell back with a sigh.

Tony studied him. The knockoff Iron Man costume didn’t fit quite right, a little too short for his arms, leaving his wrists bare, and the fabric bunched around his knees, the plastic plates jostling against each other as he shifted in his seat. With the coffee cup clutched against his chest and a day’s growth of beard on his jaw, he looked exhausted and more than a little hungover.

“Pretty sure that’s the porn parody Tony Stark,” Tony said, the words out of his mouth before he could stop them. He looked at DJ, who was working his way through the whipped cream pile with alarming speed. “Not that there’s- I wouldn’t-” He stopped. “Do you-”

DJ gave him a pitying look. “Internet exists in my world, too,” he said, utterly deadpan. 

“Right,” Tony said, because that was the best way he could’ve seen that conversation ending. Especially since Clint was doing absolutely nothing to muffle his snickering. “Everyone eat, and let’s get going.”

“We got a plan?” Clint asked, taking the platter of scrambled eggs from Darcy. He sat down, dropping the platter directly on top of the plate and digging in.

“DJ’s got his entrance ticket, now we just need to figure out where to use it,” Tony said. “We go back there, we split up so we’re not quite so obvious, and we go looking for the right door.”

“What happens when we find it?” Harris asked.

Tony looked at DJ. who shrugged. Tony nodded. “We’ll figure that out when we get there,” he said.

Clint nodded, even as he shoveled food onto his plate, piling potatoes onto eggs and pancakes. “How come you don’t have to wear a costume?” he asked, grabbing a sausage.

Tony ripped a croissant in half and took a bite. Then he reached behind him, pulling the hood of his sweatshirt over his head and pulled his sunglasses from his pocket. He opened them with a flick of his wrist and slid them onto the bridge of his nose. He spread his hands. “Incognito Tony Stark,” he said with a grin.

Clint stared at him. “Needs a hat,” he said, and went back to his breakfast.

“Everyone’s a critic,” Tony said, and finished his croissant.

*

“I just paid nine dollars for a churro.”

Clint paused in the act of peeling a strip of duct tape free from the roll. “Congratulations?” he said to Darcy, before ripping the tape free with his teeth.

Darcy was staring at the churro in her hand, her face set in a frown. She tipped it to the side, releasing a cascade of cinnamon sugar. “I paid nine dollars for this.”

“So you said.” Clint twisted his arm around, trying to get a good angle. “I can’t believe you went to buy a churro.” Darcy stared at him, her face incredulous, and he shook his head. “Okay, I can believe it, because you’re, you know, you, but we’re kind of in the middle of something here.”

“Yeah. And in the middle of that something, you stopped to get your costume fixed, and I figured that I had time to stand in the longest line known to man to get the worst churro in the world, and look.” She waved the churro at him like a wand, her eyebrows arching. “I was right. Cause you’re still standing here. Navel gazing.”

“Hey, I fixed the navel.” Clint slapped the tape down on his shoulder, trying to stick the wayward piece of armor back into place. “Is that straight?”

“No,” Darcy said, and the girl who had given him the tape hovered behind her, a pained look on her face. She was wearing an oversized medic’s bag and carrying a sign that said ‘Emergency Cosplay Repairs.’

“I can-” The girl stepped forward, her hands coming up, then she stopped, as if she didn’t know what to do. She gave Darcy a hopeless look.

Darcy reached out, grabbing the end of the tape and ripping it free. Clint flinched. “Was that really necessary?” he asked as Darcy handed the tape and the shoulder bell to the girl.

“I’ll hold him still, you tape him up,” Darcy said, grabbing Clint’s arm and holding it out straight. “You, let the woman work.”

“Sorry,” Clint said, as the girl adjusted the piece of armor on his shoulder. “I’m hard on clothes.”

“I mean, this isn’t so… Durable,” the girl said, going on her tiptoes as she maneuvered the tape into place. “Sorry.”

“What? Oh, no, it’s trash,” Clint said with a grin. “I know you’re trying to be polite, but no. It’s trash.”

“Well, at least you know that,” the girl said. 

Darcy took a bite of the churro, her jaw working as she tried to chew it. Clint’s head tipped to the side. “Speaking of overpaying…”

“Oh, God, did I overpay,” Darcy said, taking another bite.

“Is it any good?” Clint asked, and the girl fixing his armor snorted.

“It is not,” Darcy said.

“It’s a convention churro,” the girl said, tugging on Clint’s sleeve. “It’s… It’s gonna be bad. All the food here is bad. And over priced.”

“They were charging three dollars for a bag of Doritos,” Darcy said. “Like, a lunch bag sized bag. Who… Who is buying that?”

“Tired con goers with less than five bucks left to their name,” the girl said with a grin.

“Stoners,” Clint said. “Stoners with less than five bucks left to their name.”

“And we have two very different life experiences here,” Darcy said.

“I mean, if you think no one here is stoned, I got bad news about the ‘pipeweed’ the Hobbit delegation is smoking,” the girl said. She slapped another strip of tape down. “There we go. That’s about as good as I can do without a glue gun or a sewing machine.”

“I appreciate it,” Clint said, as Darcy let go of his wrist. He moved his arm, and the piece of armor stayed in place. “Good enough.”

“‘Good enough’ is my motto!” the girl said, snapping him a quick salute, which Clint returned with a grin. She tucked the roll of duct tape onto her bandolier and shifted her medic bag back into place on her back. With one last wave, she headed off, looking for her next patient.

“Are we done?” Darcy asked, gnawing on the end of her churro. “We’re supposed to meet back up in like-”

“Yeah, yeah,” Clint said, flexing his arm, testing the duct tape fix. It held together, and he made a grab for Darcy’s churro. She held it out of reach with a grin. “Gimme.”

“No! I drained my retirement account for this!” Darcy said, laughing. She fended him off with a hand, and ducked to the side. It was early enough that there weren’t many people wandering the room yet, leaving her plenty of room to maneuver. But Clint was taller than her, with a longer reach, and a complete lack of morals.

Clint managed to snag it out of her hand right as his phone started to ring. Ignoring her howls, he fished it out of his pocket. “No,” he said, fending her off with his elbow. “No, give up with dignity, I-” He looked down at the phone and stilled.

Darcy grabbed the churro back from him, and looked around his arm at the face of his phone. “Busted,” she said, her voice saccharine.

“Yeah, yeah, go eat your churro,” Clint said. He took a deep breath, and swiped his thumb across the front. “Hi, Phil.”

“Where’s Stark?”

Clint winced. “I can explain.”

Before the words were fully out of his moth, Phil interrupted him, repeating, “Where’s Stark?” his voice tense and crisp.

Clint twisted around, scanning the crowd. “He’s with DJ and Harris, they’re-”

“Find him. Strange was just here-”

“Wait,” Clint said, but he was already moving. Darcy, caught off guard, scrambled to catch up, and Clint grabbed her hand, making sure he didn’t lose her. The remaining half of her churro tumbled to the ground, forgotten in an instant. “We thought he was in Vegas, he’s-”

“DJ’s Strange,” Phil said. “Looking for DJ. And he wasn’t alone.”

His fingers locked on Darcy’s, squeezing so hard that he must have hurt her, because she grabbed his wrist with her other hand. He glanced back, the word ‘sorry’ half formed on his lips, and she was running with him now, running full out. “Go,” she said, through her teeth. “I can keep up.”

“Who?” Clint said to Phil, even though he was still looking at Darcy.

“Rogers,” Phil said, and Clint had known that was coming and yet, he wasn’t prepared for it, not at all.

“How long?”

How long since they’d come? How long since they’d left? How long had Phil had known what was happening? How long did they have? All the questions, condensed down to the essentials, because he knew Phil and Phil knew him and Clint had depended on that fact more times than he could remember. When there were no words and no time and nothing else to depend on, Phil was always there.

“They’re already on the way,” Phil said, and Clint hung up. 

“Stay with me,” he said to Darcy, and somehow, somehow she did.

*

“Where’s DJ?”

Tony spun, his right hand coming up in a fluid, instinctive movement. Without the repulsors, it was a useless gesture, but even as he was doing it, he couldn’t quite make himself stop. Stephen Strange looked at Tony’s naked palm, his brows a hard line above his eyes. Despite everything, he didn’t look nearly as out of place in the middle of a Las Vegas convention as he probably should’ve. Tony huffed out a breath, ignoring the way that his pulse was pounding in his ears. “You know I have a heart condition, right?” he gritted out.

Strange brushed his hand aside. “Actually, no. You have a heart condition?”

“For all you know, I could!” Tony said, shaking out his fingers. They tingled, and he ignored that. “So don’t sneak up behind me like that, it’s fucking annoying.”

Strange took a deep breath. “Where is DJ?”

“He’s with Clint and Darcy, they’re looking for-”

“Why did you leave New York?”

Tony stopped. “Because the kid thought his best bet in getting home was to ask our Strange for help, and I didn’t have an answer for that other than, sure, why the fuck not, because some idiot gave him a set of armor, and if I ever meet his father, I’m going to break his nose, let’s just make that clear. I don’t-”

Behind Strange, a large man in a blue sweatshirt shifted, turning around to face Tony, and Tony’s breath froze in his lungs.

“You do realize that the whole hat and hoodie combination does absolutely nothing to hide your identity, right?” Tony asked, and he was proud of himself, he was so proud of himself, because there wasn’t so much as a hint of a tremor to his voice. He smiled, tight and thin, his gaze level. “It has fooled exactly no one through the years.”

The thing that looked like Steve smiled back, just a little, a wry twist to his lips. “We like to pretend,” he said, and it sounded almost apologetic. “And I guess you do, too?”

Right. Because Tony was wearing exactly the same stupid outfit. Which took a little bit of the sting out of his cutting bon mots.

Tony tucked his hands in his pockets, because that was easier than holding them still. “Most of what we do is pretending,” he said. The Not-Steve thing shifted, and Tony rocked back, his shoulders hitting the display of a nearby booth. Framed photos rattled against the wire racks they’d been mounted to, a strange, discordant sound that brought them all up short. Despite that, no one even looked in their direction. People passed by, as if they weren’t there, and Tony gripped the edge of the display.

“No offense,” he said, his jaw aching. “But stay there.” He met the man’s blue eyes without flinching, and how odd, how very odd to see that face and those eyes and those lips and feel nothing. Or worse than nothing. “You’re not the first doppelganger I’ve met, and I haven’t had much luck with dealing with Steve Rogers that aren’t my Steve.” He stopped, his shoulders twitching up in a shrug. “Our Steve.” 

“Ah-” Rogers started, and Tony shook his head.

“The Steve Rogers who belongs here, who is not you,” Tony said, in a rush. “You don’t belong here.” 

Rogers nodded. “Neither does DJ,” he said, his voice calm. Controlled. But there was tension in his shoulders, in his jaw, and even as he spoke to Tony, his eyes were moving, darting over the crowd, looking for something. Looking for someone. His gaze settled back on Tony’s face, and now Tony could see the desperation there, the hollow emptiness in his eyes. “We…” He stopped, his mouth working, but nothing else came out. 

“He’s fine.” 

Tony kept his attention on Rogers and Strange. “Did you finally decide to show up?” he asked, holding out his hand.

Harris handed him the con guide as he came up next to him. “I was gone for less than five minutes, I barely left your line of sight, and you manage to complicate things,” he said, keeping a wary eye on the various Stevens and Stephens. “How do you do this?”

“This one, it wasn’t my fault,” Tony pointed out. He waved the con book at the interlopers. “I didn’t invite them.”

Steven exhaled, his face clearing. “You’re Harris.” 

Harris moved forward, one hand extended, and Steve took it. “And your his dad,” Harris said.

Steve tried to smile, and almost managed it. “One of them.” He glanced at Tony. “Took me a long time to come around to the concept of the armor, but if you still want someone to punch…”

“Don’t tempt me,” Tony said. He reached out, snagging Harris by the back of his jacket. “And you. Stop trying to put yourself in front of me.”

“I’m not,” Harris said, even as he resisted being dragged back into place. “I’m just-” 

“You are about as threatening as a slightly confused baby duck, stop it,” Tony said, almost amused by this. But mostly concerned. “I do not need to explain to your supervisor or your girlfriend how a knockoff Captain America threw you through a display of out of print commemorative plates. Get-”

“Tony!”

He barely had time to react before Clint came crashing through the crowd, leaving chaos in his wake. In one smooth, fluid motion, he skidded to a stop in front of Tony. “What are you-” Tony resisted the urge to give him a swift, hard kick in the ass. “Jesus, Barton!”

“Are you all right?” Clint snapped. “Is this-”

Tony glanced back as Darcy came pushing through the crowd, and he craned his head, looking behind her, annoyed that DJ wasn’t right with her. “It’s fine! For once in your life, can you not overreact?”

Clint’s attention was still on Steve, his hands lose and open at his side, ready for a fight. “Phil said-”

Tony grabbed Clint’s shoulder. “Where’s DJ?”

Clint’s head swung around, his eyes wide. “With you.”

Tony felt the bottom drop out from under him, and he ignored it, ignored the way his vision was going white at the edges, ignored the way his chest ached. “No. When we came in-”

“He went with you,” Clint interrupted. His eyes darted towards Harris. “You. Harris. And DJ. As soon as we walked into the room-”

Tony was already shaking his head. “No. He said he was-” Breathing was hard now, it was a physical struggle. “I saw him walk away with you. I know what I-”

“He wasn’t with us,” Clint said. “I turned around twice, and all three of you were gone.”

“He stayed with you,” Darcy said, her voice thin. “I-” She gestured at Clint. “I told him, I saw him walk away with you, right between you and Harris, he was never with us.”

“You lost him?” Strange said, his voice rising, and Clint turned on him.

“Yeah, you know what? You don’t get to talk here,” he said, the words cutting. “He’s here because you lost him, so really-”

“Enough.” 

Everyone stopped, heads swinging toward Steve. He met their eyes, one by one. “That’s enough,” he repeated, and it was his field voice, the one he used when he needed their attention, when he needed their cooperation. “There’s blame enough to go around here, and I don’t care about who’s going to shoulder the brunt of it. All that matters is that we find him.”

His head swung towards Tony. “When is the last time you’re sure he was with you?”

Tony shook his head, his head swinging to watch a girl pass by them, close enough to touch, but without acknowledging them. “You’re doing this,” he said to Strange. “You’re, what, hiding us?”

“Yes, it’s easier-”

“Could our you do that?” Tony asked, cutting him off. “Could that be what happened? An illusion? So everyone saw him safely with someone else, to give the caster time to get him away from us without a fuss?”

Strange’s mouth went flat. “It’s possible,” he said.

“How possible?” Steve asked him.

“It would explain how he slipped away without any of them seeing,” Strange said. “DJ wouldn’t be capable of something like that, it’s too complex to confuse this many people, but someone else-”

“To snatch him,” Clint said.

There was something in the back of his head, something that Tony couldn’t quite remember, something that bothered him, like an itch under the armor at a place he couldn’t quite reach. He scrubbed a hand over his eyes, trying to concentrate. “Who would-”

“Where’s Harris?”

Tony’s head jerked up. “What- I-” Darcy was looking around, her head jerking from one side to the other. “What do you-” He spun around. “Harris?”

“Right. All of you stay right fucking here,” Clint said, and that was stupid, that was absolutely stupid, and Tony was already running. “Stark!”

Tony didn’t even listen. There wasn’t any point.

*

The plus to this suit was that no one questioned him.

No one stopped him as Harris cut through the crowd, at something just under a sprint. No one tried to slow him down. No one so much as gave him as much of a second glance. Even when he walked up to the information booth, reached in, and snagged the three ring binder from the desk, without missing a step. The staffer looked up, surprise washing over his face, and Harris said, “I need this,” and simply walked off.

No one stopped him.

He flipped it open, thumbing through the pages, his fingers moving just as fast as his feet. Something fell out, fluttering behind him, and he didn’t care, he didn’t care about any of it, he knew what he was looking for and that wasn’t it. Emergency numbers and schedules and staff listings and floor hours. Contacts with the hotel and the union and the city. Copies of contracts and permission forms, the rules and lists of places to eat.

And maps.

He ripped the pages free of the binder, the plastic sheets snapping as he pulled them hard against the rings. Turning a corner, he tossed the binder down on the nearest table and just kept walking.

Maps. Maps. Panel rooms and video rooms and autograph rooms and hallways and vendor space and artist alley. Harris’ eyes snapped across the page, looking for-

For the void.

Two rooms, on the third floor, listed on the map, but grayed out, no title, no designation. No indication what they were for, but still included. Still part of the whole, even if they were kept apart.

He was running by the time he got to the escalators, and he was a man in a suit and an angry look on his face; people moved out of his way.

No one stopped him. Up the escalators and along the hallway, glancing down at the map every third of fourth step, certain he was making a mistake, terrified of going the wrong way even though he’d just confirmed he wasn’t. He was never sure. And mistakes cost time, time they might not have.

Harris hit the third floor at a run and no one stopped him.

He flew around a corner, his shoes skidding along the floor, and he rocked back, trying to keep his balance without slowing down. The crowd had thinned out to almost nothing, a boy in a wizard’s robe sitting against the wall with his phone plugged into the wall, and a woman with two kids sitting in an alcove with a lunch box and crayons scattered across the floor in front of her. She looked up as Harris passed, a faint frown chasing itself across her face, a flicker of concern, but all she did was reach out, tugging one of the little girls to sit closer to her.

There was a janitor’s cart in the hall, and he reached out as he passed, his hand closing on one of the wooden handles sticking out of the bin. He wrenched it free, a push broom with a broad wooden head; not what he wanted, but it was what he had, and it was solid and hard and real in his hand.

It wasn’t an ideal weapon, but it would do.

There was no sign on the wall, or pointing the way. There was just a row of unnumbered doors in an empty hallway. Empty except for a single convention staffer, sitting there on a rickety folding chair, more focused on the phone in his hand than anything else that was happening around him.

Harris, his pace slowed to a walk, headed up the hallway, and the staffer looked up. “Hi,” he said, shifting in his seat. It rocked under him, the legs creaking, and he steadied himself with a hand on the wall. “Sorry. No public access up here. If you’re looking for-”

Harris braced the end of the broom handle on the floor. “VIP lounge.”

The staffer paused. “Uh-”

“This is the VIP lounge,” Harris said, and it wasn’t a question, it was just the only logical answer. “That’s why I’m here. For the VIP lounge.”

“Okay. Can I see your pass?” the staffer said with a smile.

“Right, I- It’s-” Harris shook his head. “Know what? No.”

The staffer’s smile died. “What?”

“No,” Harris repeated. He gave a nod, his fingers flexing on the handle of the broom. “Thanks.” And with that, he simply swung the broom around, set the head of it against the staffer’s chest, and shoved. The staffer yelped, more in surprise than anything else, as the chair tipped backwards. He went over, his arms and legs flailing as he crashed to the ground.

“Sorry,” Harris said, even as he pushed the door open, and kicked it shut behind him.

It was a perfectly ordinary looking hotel conference room, set with a few arm chairs and a single rather lopsided couch. There was a table, piled with con booklets and a few discarded bags of wrappers and brochures. There was a table with a coffee urn and water pitchers, a plate of picked over cookies, with the crumbling and rejected remains scattered across the tablecloth.

And a single girl, sitting next to the window, a paper cup in one hand and a big, goofy robot plush toy balanced on her knees. Her head swung in Harris’ direction, her dark hair sliding over one shoulder as she blinked at him, her expression quizzical.

“They just emptied the trash,” she said, and then she smiled. “But we could use more water? If you have a chance?”

Harris stared at her. “What?”

She stared back. “The trash?” She gestured at him, with long, graceful fingers. “You’re… From the hotel?”

Harris looked at the broom in his hand. “No, uh, no, I’m-” He looked at her. “I’m-” His eyes darted to the side, towards the tray of dirty dishes next to the door. “Is this the VIP lounge?”

Her expression went still. “Ah.” She stood up, turning to set the plush on her chair. “I think you’re lost.”

“I’m not-” The door crashed open behind him, and Harris jerked around, the broom coming up to ward off the newest threat.

The staffer, his face flushed and his hair disordered, glared at him. “I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said, and made a grab for the broom. Harris jerked it up and out of reach. “I’m really sorry, I’ve called security, we’ll have him removed right away-”

“It’s all right, he’s-” The girl paused, her head tipped to the side. “I’m not quite sure what he is, but I don’t think that’s-”

“Houdini knew something we didn’t know,” Harris blurted out, and she went still.

“Ah,” she said, and the sound whispered past her lip, soft and almost sad. She raised her hand, her fingers tracing a strange, twisted pattern through the air. “Thank you, Patrick, but I don’t think that will be necessary.”

Light flickered around her fingertips, like sparks falling from a child’s sparkler. She stepped around Harris, her hand coming up, and he couldn’t look away from her fingers. The light seemed to settle on his skin, in his eyes, on his lips. It was…

Mesmerizing.

From a distance, he was aware of movement, of words. Of the sound of a door, opening and closing. But mostly, he was aware of the light, warm and comforting and all-encompassing. He was aware, on some level, of the broom being pulled from his hands, and he let it go. He didn’t need it. He didn’t need anything.

“There’s no magic to you. Curious.”

His head lolled to the side, following the flow of the light, rising and falling in waves, like music, like laughter.

“I thought you might be with her. Perhaps you are, still. You wouldn’t be the first one to be tricked by that one. Shapeshifters. Tricky business. Hard to see through the illusions, and hers? Is very good. She might have gotten away with it, might have reached us unseen.”

Harris knew this was important, but he didn’t know why. He opened his mouth, tried to speak, and light filled his mouth, filled his throat.

“But Agatha has faced her before. And she’s very hard to trick.”

The light dipped and swirled in front of him, and his head twisted to follow it. “Come along now.” The voice was amused. “Let’s see what she has to say about you.”

He stumbled forward one step, and another, his body swaying with every awkward movement. But the light was there, just out of reach, coaxing him forward. It rose and fell, it pulsed like music, like something, something very familiar-

The light died in an instant, and Harris slammed back to reality so fast that it nearly knocked him off his feet. “What the-”

The girl was standing there, directly in front of him, red light swirling around one upraised hand. “Your phone’s ringing.”

Harris’ hand came up, fumbling at the pocket of his coat for an embarrassingly long time before he managed to get a grip on it. “I-”

Her lips twitched, then stretched into a smile, puckish and bright. “‘The Phony King of England?’” she asked.

Harris had to swallow twice before he could manage the single word. “Yes.”

“I have that same song set as a ringtone for a certain very annoying archer.” She slipped the phone out of Harris’ fingers, and he let her take it. “I’d say, what’re the odds of that?” Her eyes tipped up to meet his. “Except he put it there. And he’s a great one for repeating his jokes.” 

She silenced the phone with a flick of one glowing finger. “Right. Tell me how you know Barton.”

**Author's Note:**

> So we're back where we started. Honestly, until girlbehindtheglasses requested a return to Harris and DJ, with a side of Stephen Strange and Tony Stark being their own wild selves, I had no intention of revisting the events of "You or Someone Like You." So this was a challenge, and God knows I hate a challenge. 8)
> 
> Hopefully, she enjoys it, anyway.


End file.
